Related papers: "Barchan" dunes in the lab
In the realm of granular bedforms, barchan dunes are strong attractors that can be found in rivers, terrestrial deserts and other planetary environments. These bedforms are characterized by a crescentic shape, which, although robust,…
We apply a model for sand dunes to calculate formation of dunes on Mars under the present Martian atmospheric conditions. We find that different dune shapes as those imaged by Mars Global Surveyor could have been formed by the action of…
The transport of solid particles entrained by a fluid flow is frequently found in industrial applications. A better knowledge of it, is of importance to improve particle related industrial processes. When shear stresses exerted by the fluid…
Barchan dunes --- crescent-shaped dunes that form in areas of unidirectional winds and low sand availability --- commonly display an asymmetric shape, with one limb extended downwind. Several factors have been identified as potential causes…
To analyze theoretically the stability of the shape and the migration process of transverse dunes and barchans, we propose a {\it skeleton model} of 3D dunes described with coupled dynamics of 2D cross-sections. First, 2D cross-sections of…
The simplest type of dune is the transverse one, which propagates with invariant profile orthogonally to a fixed wind direction. Here we show numerically and with a linear stability analysis that transverse dunes are unstable with respect…
We inquire into the morphodynamics of barchans under seasonal flows. For that, we carried out grain-scale numerical computations of a subaqueous barchan exposed to two-directional flows, and we varied the angle and frequency of…
A simple model for the dynamics of dunes associated with vegetation is proposed. Using the model, formation processes of transverse dunes, parabolic dunes and elongated parabolic dunes according to two environmental factors: i)the amount of…
Barchans are crescentic dunes propagating on a solid ground. They form dune fields in the shape of elongated corridors in which the size and spacing between dunes are rather well selected. We show that even very realistic models for…
Our aim in this note is to introduce and study a mathematical model for the description of traveling sand dunes. We use surface flow process of sand under the effect of wind and gravity. We model this phenomena by a non linear…
Many complex aspects are involved in the morphodynamics of crescent-shaped dunes, known as barchans. One of them concerns the trajectories of individual grains over the dune, and how they affect its shape. In the case of subaqueous…
We present in this paper a simplification of the dune model proposed by Sauermann et al. which keeps the basic mechanisms but allows analytical and parametric studies. Two kinds of purely propagative two dimensional solutions are exhibited:…
We model formation and evolution of transverse dune fields. In the model, only the cross section of the dune is simulated. The only physical variable of relevance is the dune height, from which the dune width and velocity are determined, as…
The engineering interest about dune fields is dictated by the their interaction with a number of human infrastructures in arid environments. Sand dunes dynamics is dictated by wind and its ability to induce sand erosion, transport and…
Barchans are dunes of high mobility which have a crescent shape and propagate under conditions of unidirectional wind. However, sand dunes only appear above a critical size, which scales with the saturation distance of the sand flux [P.…
Transverse dunes appear in regions of mainly unidirectional wind and high sand availability. A dune model is extended to two dimensional calculation of the shear stress. It is applied to simulate dynamics and morphology of transverse dunes…
We present a model to describe the collective motion of barchan dunes in a field. Our model is able to reproduce the observation that a typical dune stays confined within a stripe. We also obtain some of the pattern structures which…
Barchans are dunes of crescentic shape found on Earth, Mars and other celestial bodies, growing usually on polydisperse granular beds. In this Letter, we investigate experimentally the growth of subaqueous barchans consisting of bidisperse…
Sand dunes are often covered by vegetation and biogenic crusts. Despite their significant role in dune stabilization, biogenic crusts have rarely been considered in studies of dune dynamics. Using a simple model, we study the existence and…
In zones of loose sand, wind-blown sand dunes emerge due the linear instability of a flat sedimentary bed. This instability has been studied in experiments and numerical models but rarely in the field, due to the large time and length…