Aeolian Grain Transport 1: Mechanics (acta Mechanica. Supplementa) (v. 1)

Wind erosion has such a pervasive influence on environmental and agricultural matters that academic interest in it has been continuous for several decades. However, there has been a tendency for the resulting publications to be scattered widely in the scientific litera­ ture and consequently to provide a less coherent resource than might otherwise be hoped for. In particular, cross-reference between the literature on desert and coastal morphology, on the deterioration of wind affected soils, and on the process mechanics of the grain/air­ flow system has been disappointing. A successful workshop on "The Physics of Blown Sand", held in Aarhus in 1985, took a decisive step in collecting a research community with interests spanning geomorphology and grain/wind process mechanics. The identification of that Community was reinforced by the Binghampton Symposium on Aeolian Geomorphology in 1986 and has been fruitful in the development of a number of international collaborations. The objectives of the pre­ sent workshop, which was supported by a grant from the NATO Scientific Affairs Division, were to take stock of the progress in the five years to 1990 and to extend the scope of the community to include soil deterioration (and dust release) and those beach processes which link with aeolian activity on the coast. These two volumes contain a collection of selected papers on a wide range of aspects of natural transport and re-sorting of sand and soil. Apart from one paper on avalanche and a small number in which sea waves are also an agent, the papers all deal exclusively with wind erosion. One paper reviews in depth the contributions to the literature of aeolian transport which have been published during the last five years. The purpose of the workshop from which these volumes derive was to discuss work carried out during these five years but not yet published. The collection of papers was reviewed in light of these discussions and can therefore be taken to be a particularly well informed statement about the subject as it stood in mid 1990. Several important field problem classes were examined as were several new observational techniques. This activity, together with widespread concern about soil degradation and desertification in wind transported soils, will probably attract many new workers to the field during the next decade. This summary of its present status will be extremely helpful to them Front Matter....Pages i-viii A review of recent progress in our understanding of aeolian sediment transport....Pages 1-19 Wind modification and bed response during saltation of sand in air....Pages 21-51 Numerical model of the saltation cloud....Pages 53-66 An analytic model of wind-blown sand transport....Pages 67-81 Saltation layers, vegetation canopies and roughness lengths....Pages 83-96 Grain transport rates in steady and unsteady turbulent airflows....Pages 97-122 Initiation of motion of quartz sand grains....Pages 123-134 Wind tunnel observations of aeolian transport rates....Pages 135-144 An experimental study of Froude number effect on wind-tunnel saltation....Pages 145-157 Grain shape effects on aeolian sediment transport....Pages 159-166 Two- and three dimensional evolution of granular avalanche flow — theory and experiments revisited....Pages 167-181 Back Matter....Pages 183-183 1. Mechanics O.e. Barndorff-nielsen And B.b. Willetts, Eds. ; C. Christiansen ... [et Al.], Associate Editors. Includes Bibliographical References.