Geophysical mass flows, such as landslides, avalanches or debris flows, are frequent mass movement processes in mountain areas and often cause disastrous damage. This book lays a foundation for formulating the depth-averaged equations describing the shallow geophysical mass flows over non-trivial topography. It consists of the detailed derivation of the model equations. The stimulating numerical examples demonstrate how the proposed models are applied. All this make this book accessible to a wide variety of readers, especially senior undergraduate and graduate students of fluid mechanics, civil engineering, applied mathematics, engineering geology, geophysics or engineers who are responsible for hazard management.

In this book fluid mechanics and thermodynamics (F&T) are approached as interwoven, not disjoint fields. The book starts by analyzing the creeping motion around spheres at rest: Stokes flows, the Oseen correction and the Lagerstrom-Kaplun expansion theories are presented, as is the homotopy analysis. 3D creeping flows and rapid granular avalanches are treated in the context of the shallow flow approximation, and it is demonstrated that uniqueness and stability deliver a natural transition to turbulence modeling at the zero, first order closure level. The difference-quotient turbulence model (DQTM) closure scheme reveals the importance of the turbulent closure schemes’ non-locality effects. Thermodynamics is presented in the form of the first and second laws, and irreversibility is expressed in terms of an entropy balance. Explicit expressions for constitutive postulates are in conformity with the dissipation inequality. Gas dynamics offer a first application of combined F&T. The book is rounded out by a chapter on dimensional analysis, similitude, and physical experiments.

The present work contains 150 papers that were presented during ISEC-03, the 3rd International Conference on Structural and Construction Engineering, that was held in Tokuyama College of Technology, Shunan, Japan, from September 20 to 23, 2005. The theme of the conference was Collaboration and Harmony of Creative Systems. The conference was to encourage and assist the collaboration of any and all kinds of structural, system, and construction engineering using information technology in an environmentally friendly manner. This book contains these challenging papers.