Submarine granular flows down inclined planes

Submarine flows of granular material down a rough inclined plane are experimentally investigated. We focus on the dense flow regime when the whole sediment layer is flowing down the slope and when no deposition nor entrainment occurs. In this regime, steady uniform flows are observed for which we systematically measure the depth-averaged velocity, the thickness, and the excess pore pressure for different inclinations and different flow rates. The experimental measurements are analyzed within a theoretical approach inspired by recent results obtained for dry granular flows. The basic assumption of the model is that the constitutive law obtained in the dry case still holds for submarine flow, if one substitutes the inertial time scale coming into play in the rheology by a viscous time scale. The agreement between the measurements and the theory supports this assumption. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.