Abstract

In this paper, the effect of sand particles transportation, modeled as a 3D mesh-free particles system, caused by wind blowing is considered. The simulation of this effect is a very interesting research field in natural phenomena simulation such as topographical formation, terrain erosion and terrain analysis. For the 3D modeling it was assumed that both the sand motion and the wind motion are incom pressible continuum systems and their behavior follows the Navier-Stokes equations. To simulate the sand transporta tion, the Navier-Stokes equations are discretized using the Moving Particle Semi-implicit (MPS) method. Each par ticle moves accordingly with its own mass and the exter nal/internal forces applied on it. A numerical model based on MPS method was developed, the equations of motion were solved, the interaction force between the sand and sand-surface evaluated and the interface (topographical for mation) reconstructed. The implementation has been done using a C++ object-oriented approach, with the Qt library and the OpenGL framework used for the graphic process ing and visualization.