The physics of Aeolian sand transport

Alexandre Valance (1) , Keld Rømer Rasmussen (2) , Ahmed Ould El Moctar (3) , Pascal Dupont (4)

1 IPR - Institut de Physique de Rennes
2 Department of Geoscience [Aarhus]
3 LTeN - Laboratoire de Thermique et d’Energie de Nantes
4 LGCGM - Laboratoire de Génie Civil et Génie Mécanique

We give a synthetic overview of the state of art of the physics of sand aeolian transport. We first present the main ideas developed by Bagnold in the middle of the last century. We then review the recent experimental and theoretical advances made in the field and emphasize that the particle flow rate does not exhibit a cubic dependence with the air friction speed, as predicted by Bagnold, but a quadratic one. Finally, we list important open issues that remain.

Mots clés: Saltation; Aeoliansandtransport; Particle-ladenfluidflows

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

Alexandre Valance, Keld Rømer Rasmussen, Ahmed Ould El Moctar, Pascal Dupont. The physics of Aeolian sand transport. Comptes Rendus. Physique, 2015, 16 (1), pp.1-13. ⟨10.1016/j.crhy.2015.01.006⟩. ⟨hal-01115982⟩