Measurement and simulation of sand saltation movement under fluctuating wind in a natural field environment

Abstract

Extensive research on the near surface movement of sand particles has focused on wind tunnel experiments, theoretical analysis, and numerical simulation of sand saltation under ideal and controllable conditions. Most field observations are results on the average rate of sand transport over some hours or the whole day. However, researchers found recently that the effect of turbulent characteristics of near surface wind in real atmospheric boundary layers on the sand transport rate was obvious. The turbulent characteristics would cause a significant discrepancy between field observation and simulation of sand transport rate. In this work, a field experiment in a real-time system was designed to synchronously measure physical quantities, such as fluctuating wind velocity in the near surface region, sand transport intensity, temperature, and humidity, with the frequency of 1 Hz, at two points on a homogeneous flat sand surface located in the Minqin area, which is between the edges of the Badain Jaran Desert and the Tengger Desert. The relationship between the saltation events and some physical properties, such as the fluctuating wind velocity, temperature, and humidity, was studied. On the basis of the field observation results, a numerical model was developed to simulate sand movement under the fluctuating wind. The overall features of the experimental measurements were reproduced by simulation.