title: Scaling laws for melting ice avalanches.
abstract: This Letter describes an investigation of interfacial melting in ice-bearing granular flows. It is proposed that energy associated with granular collisions causes melting at an ice particle's surface, which can thus occur at temperatures well below freezing. A laboratory experiment has been designed that allows quantification of this process and its effect on the dynamics of a granular shear flow of ice spheres. This experiment employs a rotating drum, half filled with ice particles, situated in a temperature controlled laboratory. Capillary forces between the wetted melted particle surfaces lead to the clumping of particles and enhanced flow speeds, in turn leading to further melting. Dimensional analysis defines a parameter space for further experimentation.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom. barbara.turnbull@nottingham.ac.uk
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Turnbull