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We derive expressions for the rates of erosion and deposition at the interface between a dense, dry, inclined granular flow and an erodible bed. In obtaining these, we assume that the interface between the flowing grains and the bed moves with the speed of a pressure wave in the flow, for deposition, or with the speed of a disturbance through the contacting particles in the bed, for erosion. We employ the expressions for the rates of erosion and deposition to show that after an abrupt change in the angle of inclination of the bed the characteristic time for the motion of the interface is much shorter than the characteristic time of the flow. This eliminates the need for introducing models of erosion and deposition rate in the mass balance; and the instantaneous value of the particle flux is the same function of the instantaneous value of the flow depth as in a steady, uniform flow.

We reanalyze previous experimental measurements of solid volume fraction, mean velocity, and velocity fluctuations in collisional suspensions of plastic cylinders and water flowing over inclined, erodible beds. We show that the particle pressure scales with the granular temperature, as predicted by kinetic theory of granular gases. The assumption that the particle shear stress is also well predicted by kinetic theory permits us to determine the fluid shear stress and the effective fluid viscosity from the experiments. The fluid viscosity can be decomposed into turbulent and granularlike components: the turbulent viscosity can be modeled using a mixing length, which is a decreasing function of the local volume fraction and does not depend upon the distance from the bed; the granularlike viscosity, associated with the transfer of momentum due to the conjugate motion of the fluid mass added to the particles, can be modeled by replacing the particle density with the density of the added fluid mass in the viscosity of kinetic theory.