A two-species continuum model for aeolian sand transport

Abstract

Starting from the physics on the grain scale, we develop a simple continuum description of aeolian sand transport. Beyond popular mean-field models, but without sacrificing their computational efficiency, it accounts for both dominant grain populations, hopping (or "saltating") and creeping (or "reptating") grains. The predicted stationary sand transport rate is in excellent agreement with wind tunnel experiments simulating wind conditions ranging from the onset of saltation to storms. Our closed set of equations thus provides an analytically tractable, numerically precise, and computationally efficient starting point for applications addressing a wealth of phenomena from dune formation to dust emission.

23 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (8)

• A scaling theory for the size distribution of emitted dust aerosols suggests climate models underestimate the size of the global dust cycle
• Vegetation against dune mobility
• Minimal size of a barchan dune
• Aeolian sans ripples: experimental study of saturated states
• Dune formation on the present Mars
• The apparent roughness of a sand surface blown by wind from an analytical model of saltation
• Formation of aeolian ripples and sand sorting
• Comment on "Minimal size of a barchan dune"

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• Megaripple mechanics: bimodal transport ingrained in bimodal sands
• Horns of subaqueous barchan dunes: A study at the grain scale
• Analytical mesoscale modeling of aeolian sand transport
• Coevolving aerodynamic and impact ripples on Earth
• The fluctuation energy balance in non-suspended fluid-mediated particle transport
• Single-dopant band bending fluctuations in MoSe${}_2$ measured with electrostatic force microscopy
• Anomalous Scaling of Aeolian Sand Transport Reveals Coupling to Bed Rheology