Dresden 2014 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 13: Poster - Glasses / Stat. Phys. Bio. / Networks (joint session DY/BP/CPP/SOE)

DY 13.2: Poster

Tuesday, April 1, 2014, 09:30–12:30, P1

Mesoscale modeling of aeolian sand transport — •Anne Meiwald, Marc Lämmel, and Klaus Kroy — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Leipzig, Germany

Aeolian transport of sand is one of the most important geological processes on Earth and other rocky planets, creating a wide range of self-organised dynamic structures, like ripples or sand dunes. To make the complex grain physics more amenable to analytical studies, it was proposed to coarse-grain the ensemble of grain trajectories by two types representing low-energetic reptating grains and high-energetic saltating grains [1]. We recently showed that our analytically tractable and numerically efficient continuum model reliably reproduces sand flux measurements obtained in various wind tunnel experiments [2].

Here, we scrutiny the potential of our approach to predict important grain-scale properties and find remarkable agreement with various experimental data. We also speculate about the reason for the success of the coarse-grained description, even in comparison to more detailed numerical models, despite its allegedly unfaithful representation of some of the grain-scale details [3]. Finally we conclude that the two-species continuum approach provides an appropriate starting point for analytical and efficient numerical modelling of seemingly complex aeolian saltation process and the structures it creates.

[1] Bagnold, The physics of blown sand and desert dunes. Dover Publ. (2005).

[2] Lämmel, Rings, and Kroy, New J. Phys. 14, 093037 (2012).

[3] Kok, and Renno, J. Geophys. Res. 114, D17204 (2009).