Related papers: Formation of aeolian ripples and sand sorting
Vortex ripples in sand are studied experimentally in a one-dimensional setup with periodic boundary conditions. The nonlinear evolution, far from the onset of instability, is analyzed in the framework of a simple model developed for…
Sea ripples are small-scale bedforms which originate from the interaction of an oscillatory flow with an erodible sand bed. The phenomenon of sea ripple formation is investigated by means of direct numerical simulation in which the sediment…
Coarsening of sand ripples is studied in a one-dimensional stochastic model, where neighboring ripples exchange mass with algebraic rates, $\Gamma(m) \sim m^\gamma$, and ripples of zero mass are removed from the system. For $\gamma < 0$…
Many sedimentary rocks are formed by migration of sand ripples. Thin layers of coarse and fine sand are present in these rocks, and understanding how layers in sandstone are created has been a longstanding question. Here, we propose a…
Sand ripples are commonly observed in both nature and industry. For example, they are found on riverbeds and in oil pipelines that transport sand. In both natural and industrial cases, ripples increase friction between the bed and fluid and…
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…
The link between external flow and granular media is investigated in view of better understanding the formation of aeolian sand ripples. The study is performed using a simplified, statistical, model based on numerical results obtained…
When a solid object or wheel is repeatedly dragged on a dry sandy surface, ripple patterns are formed. Although the conditions to form ripple patterns have been studied well, methods to eliminate the developed ripple patterns have not been…
Granular media are frequently found in nature and in industry and their transport by a fluid flow is of great importance to human activities. One case of particular interest is the transport of sand in open-channel and river flows. In many…
Many morphological features of sputter eroded surfaces are determined by the balance between ion induced linear instability and surface diffusion. However, the impact of the nonlinear terms on the morphology is less understood. We…
We derive a phenomenological continuum saltation model for aeolian sand transport that can serve as an efficient tool for geomorphological applications. The coupled differential equations for the average density and velocity of sand in the…
It is widely accepted that both ripples and dunes form in rivers by primary linear instability, the wavelength of the former scaling on the grain size, that of the latter being controled by the water depth. We revisit here this problem,…
Experimental observation of a new mechanism of sandpile formation is reported. As a steady stream of dry sand is poured onto a horizontal surface, a pile forms which has a thin river of sand on one side flowing from the apex of the pile to…
An experimental study of a granular surface submitted to a circular fluid motion is presented. The appearance of an instability along the sand-water interface is observed beyond a critical radius $r_c$. This creates ripples with a spiral…
Subaqueous and aeolian bedforms are ubiquitous on Earth and other planetary environments. However, it is still unclear which hydrodynamical mechanisms lead to the observed variety of morphologies of self-organized natural patterns such as…
An experimental study of a binary granular mixture submitted to a transient shear flow in a cylindrical container is reported. The formation of ripples with a spiral shape is observed. The appearance of phase segregation in those spiral…
We present an analytical model of aeolian sand transport. The model quantifies the momentum transfer from the wind to the transported sand by providing expressions for the thickness of the saltation layer and the apparent surface roughness.…
Off-normal low energy ion beam sputtering of solid surfaces often leads to morphological instabilities resulting in the spontaneous formation of ripple structures in nanometer length scales. In the case of Si surfaces at ambient…
Desert surfaces are typically non uniform, with individual sand dunes generally surrounded by gravel or non-erodible beds. Similarly, beaches vary in composition and moisture that enhances cohesion between the grains. These bed…
The mesoscale structure of aeolian sand transport determines a variety of natural phenomena studied in planetary and Earth science. We analyze it theoretically beyond the mean-field level, based on the grain-scale transport kinetics and…