NUMERICAL STUDY OF THE FORMATION OF LINEAR DUNES

Three-dimensional flow over the sand dunes have been studied numerically by using Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) method. In the direction of initial flow and span direction cyclic boundary conditions are imposed for velocity and pressure. The movement of the sand dune which is formed by converging wind direction has been investigated. The numerical method employed in this study can be divided into three parts: (i) calculation of the air flow over the sand dune using standard MAC method with a generalized coordinate system; (ii) estimation of the sand transfer caused by the flow through the friction; (iii) determination of the shape of the sand surface. Since the computational area has been changed due to step (iii), (i)-(iii) are repeated. The simulated dune, which has initially elliptic cross section, extends at the converging direction, which is known as linear dunes.