Photogrammetry as a tool to study the formation and evolution of aeolian ripples on a flat bed eroded by impact

The experiments of aeolian impact ripples are carried out in a wind tunnel at atmospheric pressure and temperature. A spatial and temporal study of wavelength, flux and friction velocity correlated with the appearance and development of aeolian impact ripples has been studied using photogrammetry. Digital Elevation Models have been generated, providing a wealth of information such as spatial evolution, temporal evolution, wavelength, erosion rate, migration speed and mass flow rate. In particular, we seek to relate ripple migration velocities to the mass flow rate of the system and the retroactive effect of aeolian impact ripples on the mass flow rate for different flow velocities.

This experimental study focuses on morphological changes of aeolian impact ripples and their migration velocity at different evolution stages for grain size ~310 µm in order to investigate if there is a difference in wavelength between initial formation and full development time. We also investigate aeolian impact ripples development conditions according to saturated and unsaturated flux.