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An experimental study on the spatiotemporal evolution of sand waves/ripples in turbulent boundary layer airflow
An experimental study was conducted to investigate the spatiotemporal evolution of sand waves/ripples submerged in a turbulent boundary layer airflow. While a digital image projection technique was applied to achieve temporally resolved measurements of the dynamically evolving sand surface morpholog...
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Published in: | Physics of fluids (1994) 2020-06, Vol.32 (6) |
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Main Authors: | , , , |
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Subjects: | |
Citations: | Items that this one cites Items that cite this one |
Online Access: | Get full text |
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Summary: | An experimental study was conducted to investigate the spatiotemporal evolution of sand waves/ripples submerged in a turbulent boundary layer airflow. While a digital image projection technique was applied to achieve temporally resolved measurements of the dynamically evolving sand surface morphology, a combined particle tracking/imaging velocimetry technique was also used to reveal the two-phase (i.e., air–sediment) flow field during the dynamic sand wave/ripple evolution process. It was found that the sand bed surface would evolve from initial random three-dimensional (3D) sand wavelets to two-dimensional (2D) sand waves and further into well-organized sequences of 3D chevron-shaped sand ripples that are separated by longitudinal streaks, when exposed to the turbulent boundary layer airflow. A discrepancy of the local sand wave propagation at different transverse locations was revealed based on the wavelet analysis of the time-series of the sand bed height variation, which was suggested to contribute to the formation of the 3D chevron-shaped sand ripples. It was also found that the evolving sand waves/ripples could dramatically affect the near-bed two-phase (i.e., air–sediment) flow structures as indicated by the dramatically disturbed air–sediment flow structures. By correlating the sand surface profiles and the near-surface sand particle velocity patterns, a complete description of the dynamic sand bedform evolution was revealed with five dominant phases being defined: (I) initial strengthening phase, (II) transition phase, (III) ripple-modulated re-strengthening phase, (IV) stabilizing phase, and (V) longitudinal phase. |
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ISSN: | 1070-6631 1089-7666 |
DOI: | 10.1063/1.5144522 |