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Scaling Laws in Aeolian Sand Transport

T. D. Ho, A. Valance, P. Dupont, and A. Ould El Moctar
Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 094501 – Published 1 March 2011

Abstract

We report on wind tunnel measurements on saltating particles in a turbulent boundary layer and provide evidence that over an erodible bed the particle velocity in the saltation layer and the saltation length are almost invariant with the wind strength, whereas over a nonerodible bed these quantities vary significantly with the air friction speed. It results that the particle transport rate over an erodible bed does not exhibit a cubic dependence with the air friction speed, as predicted by Bagnold, but a quadratic one. This contrasts with saltation over a nonerodible bed where the cubic Bagnold scaling holds. Our findings emphasize the crucial role of the boundary conditions at the bed and may have important practical consequences for aeolian sand transport in a natural environment.

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  • Received 3 December 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.094501

© 2011 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

T. D. Ho1, A. Valance1, P. Dupont2, and A. Ould El Moctar3

  • 1Institut de Physique de Rennes, UMR UR1-CNRS 6251, Université de Rennes 1, 35042 Rennes cedex, France
  • 2LGCGM, INSA de Rennes, Campus Beaulieu, 35043 Rennes, France
  • 3Laboratoire de Thermocinétique, Polytech. Nantes, CNRS UMR 6607, 44306 Nantes, France

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Vol. 106, Iss. 9 — 4 March 2011

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