Challenging the numerical simulation of viscoplastic flows: cross-comparison with physical experiments – VPFlows

The VPFlows project develops innovative numerical methods for HPC simulation of yield stress flows, associated to the modelling of geophysical flows like avalanches. It is a deeply interdisciplinary project: the part on numerical simulations (currently the most precise in the field thanks to HPC) goes back-and-forth with the experimental part where such flows are monitored with the best degree of accuracy of the recent literature. Considered designed equations are of both types: either full (i.e. natural) Herschel-Bulkley-like in a fixed domain (2D and 3D) or depth-integrated (2D models à la Saint-Venant, which are more computationally affordable and mandatory for real avalanche configurations). With this interdisciplinary approach, VPFlows consortium (ENS de Lyon, INRAE & LJK) already proved its complementarity and efficiency in publishing cutting-edge results providing a better understanding of the physics and rheology of yield-stress fluids.