Wind tunnel test on windblown sand two-phase flow characteristics in arid desert regions

Windblown sand two-phase flow characteristics become an essential factor in evaluating the windblown sand load on infrastructures and civil structures. Based on the measured wind characteristics in arid desert regions, windblown sand flow fields with three kinds of sand beds are simulated in the wind tunnel, respectively. The results indicate that the characteristic saltation height of sand particles increases with the wind speed and particle size in the windblown sand flow field. As the sand concentration increases, the wind speed decreases, and the turbulence intensity increases. The concentration, energy, and impact pressure of sand particles increase with increasing wind speed and decrease exponentially with increasing height. At the same wind speed, the concentration, energy, and impact pressure of the coarse sand, fine sand, and mixed sand increases, in turn. Moreover, the variation of kinetic energy with height is similar to that of total energy with height and the proportion of potential energy to total energy is quite small.