The dune size distribution and scaling relations of barchan dune fields

DOI10.1007/S10035-008-0120-4MaRDI QIDQ1937409zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Orencio Durán, Veit Schwämmle, Pedro G. Lind, H. J. Herrmann

Publication date 28 February 2013

Published in Granular Matter (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0701367

zbMATH Keywords

pattern formationmaster equationlog-normal distributionsdune collisionsdune fields

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Soil and rock mechanics (74L10) Stochastic and other probabilistic methods applied to problems in solid mechanics (74S60) Granularity (74E20)

Abstract: Barchan dunes emerge as a collective phenomena involving the generation of thousands of them in so called barchan dune fields. By measuring the size and position of dunes in Moroccan barchan dune fields, we find that these dunes tend to distribute uniformly in space and follow an unique size distribution function. We introduce an analyticalmean-field approach to show that this empirical size distribution emerges from the interplay of dune collisions and sand flux balance, the two simplest mechanisms for size selection. The analytical model also predicts a scaling relation between the fundamental macroscopic properties characterizing a dune field, namely the inter-dune spacing and the first and second moments of the dune size distribution.

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• A simple model for a transverse dune field
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