A transient depth-averaged lava flow model with a Herschel-Bulkley rheology accounting for three phases

Abstract

This study presents a three-phase suspension lava flow model with a Herschel-Bulkley rheology. The suspension contains crystals and gas bubbles, and two closures for the evolution of the crystal volume fraction are considered. The first closure minimizes the complexity of the system by treating crystal fraction as a transported quantity subject to relaxation towards an equilibrium state. This closure avoids a parametrization of the many heat transfer mechanisms a lava flow is subjected to. The other closure is on the lava temperature considering four heat transfer mechanisms and a prescribed temperature--crystallinity relationship. We deduce from this system and solve numerically a one-dimensional depth-averaged model. A comparison with a pre-existing model based on real lava flow data suggests that the prediction of flow parameters done with the multi-parametric evolution of temperature yields more accurate results than those obtained with the other closure. The transient nature of our model correctly predicts that confined lava traveling down an irregular steep slope yields a series of cascading fill-then-breakout lumps that causes the overall flow to be pulsatory. These pulses dominate the local dynamics and preclude a strict steady state to be reached. Theoretically, taking gas bubbles into account is best done with a general rheological relationship valid at any capillary number. In the conditions explored herein, bubbles modulate viscosity within a factor 2 with a shear thinning behavior, decelerating slow flows and accelerating fast flows. When a simplified rheology treating bubbles as hard spheres was used, the only dynamic parameter affected was bulk viscosity.