EXPERIMENTS ON GRAVITY FLOWS OF LIQUEFIED SAND IN A DRUM CENTRIFUGE CHANNEL

Abstract

 This paper examines the behaviour of subaqueous gravity flows of liquefied sand in a set of centrifuge model tests. The behaviour of gravity flow is mainly governed by the gravity acting on the sediment. The centrifuge model testing technique is a realistic means of reproducing a submarine gravity flow, and furthermore, drum-type centrifuge does not have side walls of the channel, so that long-distance flows could be observed. A series of wave tests was performed under centrifugal accelerations of 30 or 50 gravities. In the experiments, sediment gravity flow with a velocity of 2.0m/s was reproduced in the drum centrifuge channel. The sediment flow, which corresponds to fine sand in a field, proceeded long distance with a constant velocity, resulting in a flow of more than 340 m on the prototype scale (the length of the experimental channel). The grain size distribution of the deposited sediments out of the gravity flow of mixed soils was also investigated.