Wind Tunnel Studies of Shear-Stress Partitioning in Live Plant Canopies

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Event details

Date 26.04.2013
Hour 11:1512:00
Speaker Le lauréat du Prix Ryhming : Dr. Benjamin Walter
Bio : Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF

Organisational unit: 

Snow and Permafrost
Snow cover and Micrometeorology

Education

    2002 – 2008 Physics, University Karlsruhe (KIT)
    2007 – 2008 Diploma Thesis at Fraunhofer ISE in Freiburg
    2005 – 2006 Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH) Stockholm

Research interests

    Vegetation-Atmosphere Interaction
    Wind Erosion, Transport and Deposition Processes
    Turbulent Boundary Layer Flow over Snow and Vegetation
    Shear stress partitioning
Location
Category Conferences - Seminars
The main objective of this study was to improve the understanding and the prediction of the sheltering capability of live  plant canopies against sediment erosion. Such investigations are particularly important in times of global warming, where increasing desertification and land degradation, mainly driven by sediment erosion, became major problems in more and more countries worldwide. Previous wind tunnel investigations on shear stress partitioning (a method to quantify the sheltering effect) exclusively used rigid plant imitations like cylinders or blocks for the experiments, which poorly reflect the aerodynamical behaviour of live plants. The influences of the live plants flexibility and porosity on the sheltering effect were investigated by means of surface shear stress measurements. The surface shear stress on the ground beneath the plant canopies determines the onset and the degree of sand, soil or snow erosion, and was measured with relatively high spatial and temporal resolution. The data was further used to improve a theoretical model which allows the prediction of the sheltering capability of vegetation canopies. The results are also relevant for practical applications, e.g. to identify suitable and sustainable counteractive measures against wind erosion for example.

Practical information

  • Expert
  • Free
  • This event is internal

Organizer

  • Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics and Instabilities LFMI

Contact

  • Prof. François Gallaire

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