Numerical models that calculate the fluid dynamics of explosive volcanic eruptions have been used with increasing frequency to understand volcanic processes and evaluate volcanic hazards. Yet those who develop such models rarely make them publicly available so that they can be verified, used, and possibly improved by other scientists. In this paper I present a visual, interactive, open‐source numerical model that calculates steady state flow of magma and gas in vertical eruptive conduits and contains user‐friendly utilities for quickly determining physical, thermodynamic, and transport properties of silicate melts, H2O gases, and melt‐gas‐crystal mixtures. The model represents an advance over previously published conduit models by incorporating a non‐Arrhenian viscosity relation for hydrous silicate melts, a relation between viscosity and volume fraction of gas that depends on Capillary number, and adiabatic temperature changes in the mixture using established thermodynamic relations for melts and H2O gas, respectively. Volcanologists who have not had access to conduit models have frequently approximated conduit flow using an analytical equation for incompressible, laminar, Newtonian pipe flow, which predicts that the mass flux is proportional to the fourth power of conduit radius and inversely proportional to mixture viscosity. The model presented here, which is not much more difficult to use than a back‐of‐the‐envelope calculation, shows that the pipe‐flow approximation significantly overestimates the sensitivity of mass flux to both conduit radius and mixture viscosity. Results from the model also show that viscous heating in the lower conduit, which is not considered in most other models, may increase the mass flux of large silicic eruptions by several percent and decrease the viscosity of the mixture at the fragmentation depth by a few tens of percent.

Mastin, L. G. (2002). Insights into volcanic conduit flow from an open‐source numerical model. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 3(7), 1–18. Portico.