Numerical prediction on erosion damage caused by wind-blown sand movement

Abstract

This study quantitatively investigated the erosion damage on the metal material caused by wind-blown sand under different environmental conditions (e.g. height and wind velocity) in aeolian processes. Wind-blown sand causes destructive impacts on buildings, abrasion of crops and many other damages in arid regions. Sand transport caused by wind often appears in the desert, open-pit mines and coastal dune fields, which is a special case of two-phase f low of gas and solids. Due to its special dynamic characteristics, the sand-wind system near the bed surface is complex and difficult to be solved by traditional computational fluid dynamics method. However, the steady-state saltation model is effective for describing the wind-blown sand movement. Therefore, this paper combines the solid particles erosion model with the steady-state saltation model to predict the erosion damages caused by blown sand. Correctness of the algorithm has been verified through the comparison of simulated results and experimental data of the sand flow structure. An early conclusion that the kinetic energy is crucial to erosion has been proved in this paper. The results show that the erosion rate varies with different variables, e.g. saltating velocity, saltating height, length, etc. The quantity of erosion shows stratification pattern as well as the mass flux of the sand flow. These results quantitatively show the major features of the erosion caused by wind-blown sand.

Stone weathering under Mediterranean semiarid climate in the fortress of Nueva Tabarca island (Spain)

“…Swelling during wetting-drying cycles, mineral chemical dissolution and deterioration by thermal expansion are considered as active decay processes that can act simultaneously to salt weathering [10,12,14]. However, wind contribution to the stone decay is scarcely treated in bibliography, although it is an important environmental factor controlling the salt crystallization process [9,[15][16], erosion by wind-blown solid grains [17], and wind-driven rain impact [18].…”

“…Wind in coastal regions is an important weathering agent, especially due to both the ability for driving salty water deep into the fabric of building and the abrasive sand action that can saltate and erode materials [17,35]. However, this weathering agent is commonly unconsidered in heritage deterioration studies and even some authors consider wind erosion as an infrequent decay agent [36].…”

“…The distance of sand particles increases as the wind speed increases and the size decrease. Thus, the distance of a particle with a diameter of 0.25 mm and a velocity of 5 m/s is equal to 3.1 m[17]. The absence of loose particles in the surrounding northern and western entrances protects these doors from the wind-blown grains erosion.…”

Stratigraphy, petrophysical characterization and 3D geological modelling of the historical quarry of Nueva Tabarca island (western Mediterranean): Implications on heritage conservation

“…Previous studies reveal that Halite crystallization and wind erosion are the main weathering agents in the Mediterranean semiarid climatic context of the fortress of Nueva Tabarca (Martínez-Martínez et al, 2017). On the one hand, wind plays a critical weathering action because it controls the salt-crystallization process (Rodríguez-Navarro et al, 1999), the abrasion by wind-blown particles (Shi and Shi, 2014), as well as the wind-driven rain impact (Erkal et al, 2012). Alveolization and differential erosion are the weathering forms typically associated to the aeolian action.…”

Analysis of the Damage to the Aeolian sand Concrete Surfaces Caused by Wind-Sand Erosion

“…Wind-sand erosion refers to the erosion and abrasion of sand-bearing wind on surface buildings and landforms (Shi and Shi 2014). In the wind-sand flow areas, concrete damage failure arising from wind-sand erosion can be mainly divided into two types: physical influence, and chemical influence.…”