Deformation and energy of dry snow slabs prior to fracture propagation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Snow slab avalanches primarily release by propagation of shear fractures within thin weak layers under thicker slabs. The weak layer is typically on the order of 1 mm thick and fails in mode II. In some cases, the weak layer is thicker and there may be a need to consider slope-normal deformation as part of the energy condition prior to rapid propagation. In this paper, field measurements from shear fracture initiation and high-speed films are combined to consider the effects of slope-normal deformation on bending of the slab prior to propagation and its relation to the propagation condition. Slab bending is modelled using two limiting cases: (1) a uniformly loaded beam supported by a deforming weak layer, analogous to a Winkler foundation, and (2) a uniformly loaded unsupported cantilevered beam. The experimental and analytical results suggest that slab bending prior to fracture initiation is small or negligible. Two previous approaches to modelling slab avalanche initiation involving slab bending are discussed. Both models proposed strong slab-bending effects prior to initiation, which conflicts with our results. Our field observations and modelling both show that strong bending is a dynamic effect following slope-parallel weak-layer fracture initiation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".