English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Sand fences are often erected to reduce wind speed, prevent aeolian soilerosion, and induce sand deposition and dune formation in areas affected bysand encroachment and desertification. However, the search for the mostefficient array of fences by means of field experiments alone poses achallenging task given that field experiments are affected by weatherconditions. Here we apply Computational Fluid Dynamic simulations toinvestigate the three-dimensional structure of the turbulent wind field over anarray of fences of different sizes, porosity and spacing. Our goal is toperform a quantitative analysis of this structure in the absence of saltationor suspension transport, as first step toward the development of a continuumsimulation of the aeolian soil in presence of the fences. We find that the areaof soil protected against direct aerodynamic entrainment has two regimes,depending on the spacing $L_x$ between the fences. When $L_x$ is smaller than acritical value $L_{xc}$, the wake zones associated with each fence areinter-connected (regime A), while these wake zones appear separated from eachother (regime B) when $L_x$ exceeds this critical value of spacing. The systemundergoes a second order phase transition at $L_x = L_{xc}$, with thecross-wind width of the protected zone scaling with$\left[{1-{L}_x}/{L}_{xc}\right]^\beta$ in regime A, with $\beta \approx 0.32$.Our findings have implication for a better understanding of aeolian transportin the presence of sand fences, as well as to develop optimization strategiesfor measures to protect soils from wind erosion.

CFD simulation of the wind field over a terrain with sand fences: Critical spacing for the protected soil area