Anomalous scaling of aeolian sand transport reveals coupling to bed rheology
- 1Donghai Laboratory, Zhoushan, China (tpaehtz@gmail.com)
- 2Institute of Port, Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Ocean College, Zhejiang University, Zhoushan, China (tpaehtz@gmail.com)
- 3Institute for Theoretical Physics, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
- 4Faculty of Physics, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
Authors: Thomas Pähtz, Katharina Tholen, Sandesh Kamath, Eric Parteli, Klaus Kroy
Title: Anomalous scaling of aeolian sand transport reveals coupling to bed rheology
Predicting transport rates of windblown sand is a central problem in aeolian research, with implications for climate, environmental, and planetary sciences. Though studied since the 1930s, the underlying many-body dynamics is still incompletely understood, as underscored by the recent empirical discovery of an unexpected third-root scaling in the particle-fluid density ratio [1]. Here, by means of grain-scale simulations and analytical modeling, we elucidate how a complex coupling between grain-bed collisions and granular creep within the sand bed yields a dilatancy-enhanced bed erodibility. Our minimal saltation model robustly predicts both the observed scaling and a new undersaturated steady transport state that we confirm by simulations for rarefied atmospheres [2].
[1] Pähtz, Durán, Scaling laws for planetary sediment transport from DEM-RANS numerical simulations, https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.00562
[2] Tholen, Pähtz, Kamath, Parteli, Kroy, Anomalous scaling of aeolian sand transport reveals coupling to bed rheology , Physical Review Letters, accepted.
How to cite: Pähtz, T., Tholen, K., Kamath, S., Parteli, E., and Kroy, K.: Anomalous scaling of aeolian sand transport reveals coupling to bed rheology, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-16245, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-16245, 2023.
