STUDY ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SAND AND WIND FLOW OF A NEW TYPE OF SAND BARRIER BASED ON NUMERICAL SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENT

The natural conditions in northwestern China are extremely harsh, with severe desertification. Frequent sandstorms cause significant damage to transportation infrastructure along desert margins, agricultural cash crops, and the local ecological environment. This study proposes a novel high vertical curved sand barrier system. Field experiments were conducted to validate numerical simulation results, and the properties of wind-driven sand movement and protective efficiency of these barriers were analyzed. Furthermore, double-row sand barriers with varying spacing were investigated to determine the optimal arrangement. The research demonstrates that flow deflection angle of the high vertical curved sand barrier relative to the vertical direction significantly impacts its protective efficiency, showing a fluctuating pattern with changing angles. When the inlet airflow speed reaches 10 m/s with a barrier inclination angle of 75°, the leeward deceleration zone achieves an area of 25.450 m² with a coverage range of 19.31H (where H represents barrier height), resulting in optimal overall protective efficiency. For double-row sand barriers, the protective efficiency is influenced by inter-barrier spacing. As the spacing between two rows increases, the protective efficiency initially improves before declining. The system reaches peak overall protective efficiency when the inter-barrier spacing is set at 20H.