Automatised range-gated Doppler radar measurements of a spontaneously released avalanche at the Vall Öee de la Sionne test site

Birmensdorf

2009

S. 472-476 + Poster

Artikel aus einer ZeitschriftBandaufführung

10537S

159585

Range-gated Doppler radar measurements provide decisive information about the motion of an avalanche along the avalanche track. However, up to now, such measurements have been depending on artificial avalanche release: the device had to be started manually at the time of avalanche release. We present an automatised Doppler-radar setup that is installed it the bunker of the Vall Öee de la Sione test site. The radar measurement is automatically triggered by the geophone triggering device of the test site and autonomously performs range-gated Doppler radar measurements of the avalanche velocity along the track. After shortly lining out on the principle of range-gated in Doppler-radar measurements and on the analysis procedure, we present Doppler-radar data of an avalanche that spontaneously released at the Vall Öee de la Sionne test site on 17 March 2009. In particular, we track the time evolution of the avalanche velocities in the range gates along the avalanche track to obtain a coherent picure of the avalanche motion from the evolved state to its standstill.