Study of avalanches in the Tianshan Mountains, Xinjiang, China

In order to investigate avalanche internal dynamic structures, a joint research project was carried out in the western area of the Tianshan Mountains, Xinjiang, China. A medium-size avalanche path has been instrumented with six pressure transducers and two load cells to measure avalanche velocities and impact pressures in the interior of avalanches. During the 1995-1996 winter, the data were recorded of an artificially released avalanche passing by the instruments. The impact velocities were measured to be 6.9 m/s by image analysis and 7.1 m/s by the lag time of a pair of first impact waves. It was also found that the avalanche velocity almost reached a terminal velocity, and the shape of dense flow declined towards downstream.