Propagation of Stress Waves in Alpine Snow

Abstract

AbstractThe propagation of pressure waves in low-density snow is investigated analytically to determine the variation of wave pressure and wave speed with density and frequency. The results show that, for pressure waves that produce finite volumetric deformations, both pressure jump across the wave and wave-speed increase with initial density and final density. The pressure jump was also found to increase with the wave frequency if other parameters were held constant, although the dependence on frequency is not as strong as the dependence on the initial and final densities. The relationship between pressure jump and frequency implies that high-frequency waves would tend to dissipate more quickly than lower-frequency waves, although like pressure, the attenuation rate would not be strongly frequency dependent.