Numerical simulation of vortex-generator design in soil wind erosion tunnel based on porous medium model

In this paper, Fluent, a kind of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software, was used to simulate the turbulence flow on typical wind erosion field surface in NK-1 transportable wind tunnel. A new method was introduced in the porous media model to simplify the practical irregular geometric grids of vortex-generator, and then to get the optimal distribution of stick grid-roughness elements. The effectiveness was validated by wind tunnel experiments. The results showed that the correlation coefficient between the profile obtained in wind tunnel and the simulated one was 0.974. In conclusion, the application of the new method can save time and improve the precision in calculation.