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Wind-blown sand movement often occurs in a very complicated desert environment where sand dunes and ripples are the basic forms. However, most current studies on the theoretic and numerical models of wind-blown sand movement only consider ideal conditions such as steady wind velocity, flat sand surface, etc. In fact, the windward slope gradient plays a great role in the lift-off and sand particle saltation. In this paper, we propose a numerical model for the coupling effect between wind flow and saltating sand particles to simulate wind-blown sand movement over the slope surface and use the SIMPLE algorithm to calculate wind flow and simulate sands transport by tracking sand particle trajectories. We furthermore compare the result of numerical simulation with wind tunnel experiments. These results prove that sand particles have obvious effect on wind flow, especially that over the leeward slope. This study is a preliminary study on windblown sand movement in a complex terrain, and is of significance in the control of dust storms and land desertification.

In this paper, a novel porous media permeability model is established by using particle model, capillary bundle model and fractal theory. The three-dimensional irregular spatial characteristics composed of two ideal particles are considered in the model. Compared with previous models, the results of our model are closer to the experimental data. The results show that the tortuosity fractal dimension is negatively correlated with porosity, while the pore area fractal dimension is positively correlated with porosity; The permeability is negatively correlated with the tortuosity fractal dimension and positively correlated with the integral fractal dimension of pore surface and particle radius. When the tortuosity fractal dimension is close to 1 and the pore area fractal dimension is close to 2, the faster the permeability changes, the greater the impact. Different particle arrangement has great influence on porous media permeability. When the porosity is close to 0 and close to 1, the greater the difference coefficient is, the more the permeability of different arrangement is affected. In addition, the larger the particle radius is, the greater the permeability difference coefficient will be, and the greater the permeability difference will be for different particle arrangements. With the increase of fractal dimension, the permeability difference coefficient first decreases and then increases. When the pore area fractal dimension approaches 2, the permeability difference coefficient changes faster and reaches the minimum value, and when the tortuosity fractal dimension approaches 1, the permeability difference coefficient changes faster and reaches the minimum value. Our research is helpful to further understand the connotation of medium transmission in porous media.