MADflow

Originally developed for academic research, MADflow is a light-weight yet highly accurate numerical simulation tool for mobility analysis of gravity-driven flows of tailings, soil, rock and/or water mixtures. It is particularly suited for studying phenomena such as debris flows, tailings flow, mudflows, mud floods, flowslides and avalanches.

MADflow stands out as a robust, strictly volume-conservative, depth-averaged dynamical model. It incorporates widely used rheological constitutive relationships tailored for non-Newtonian flows, including granular flows. The model adheres to the Savage-Hutter assumption, ensuring realistic stress response to strain during movement, especially in flows with higher solids concentrations.

For scenarios involving fast landslides or avalanches on irregular terrain, MADflow offers the option to activate centripetal effects. Additionally, it includes advanced capabilities for simulating the progressive shear mixing of two-layer materials using friction-based models. It is also capable of calculating the structural impacts on objects located along the flow path, including the inertia and soil resistance forces at specific depths within the total flow depth.

The software supports features crucial for comprehensive simulation, such as entrainment and erosion, as well as considerations for hydrodynamic drag and the onset of hydroplaning in submarine debris flows.

Available on both Windows and Linux, MADflow is computationally efficient and fully parallelized. It harnesses optimal scalability across both CPU architectures (utilizing OpenMP) and GPU resources (with CUDA-capable devices).

Please contact the author for the latest free version, at the author's discretion. Please note that while the software is freely available, the author does not provide technical support or consultation services.

Introduction

MADflow is a robust depth-averaged mobility analysis tool for gravity-driven flow of tailings, soil, rock and/or water mixtures.

Applications

MADflow is equipped with commonly used rheologies which have been validated / calibrated with laboratory experiments / field cases.

Tailings Dam

MADflow is capable of simulating both of the two flow processes described in CDA 2021 Technical Bulletin - Tailings Dam Breach Analysis.

Gallery

Selective collections of MADflow simulation results, including laboratory experiment validation and field case history matching.

Flume Experiment of Channelized Granular Flow

MADflow validation: Frictional Rheology

Gray J.M.N.T., Wieland M. and Hutter K. "Gravity-driven free surface flow of granular avalanches over complex basal topography". Proc of the Royal Society of London, Series A 455 (1999): 1841-1874.

Flume Experiment of Viscoplastic Fluids

MADflow validation: Herschel-Bulkley Rheology

Cochard S. and Ancey C. "Experimental investigation of the spreading of viscoplastic fluids on inclined planes". J Non-Newtionian Fluid Mechanics 158 (2009) 73-84.

Landslides or tailings dam failures are highly destructive phenomena, claiming hundreds of lives and causing millions of dollars of property damages throughout the world each year. The catastrophic nature leads this kind of disasters to be considered as one of the most threatening hazards in some regions of the world.