Numerical Modeling of Sand Dune Morphodynamics
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In this work, we present a detailed multiphase flow model for the morphodynamic evolution of sand dunes. The model is based on a mixture formulation, in which the sand and air phases are treated as a single averaged continuum, described by a set of coupled conservation laws. Momentum conservation is presented by the incompressible Navier–Stokes-like equations, while, similarly to the Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) approach, a convection–diffusion equation is employed to track the interface between the sand and air phases, as well as the avalanching and the erosion. To capture dune avalanching processes, we incorporate a degenerate parabolic sliding model [4], which is essential to reproduce critical conditions under which the local sand slope exceeds a prescribed threshold.
