comparison of different mass transport equations for wind erosion quantification purposes in southwest iran: a wind tunnel study

The objective of this study was to assess the efficiency of three mathematical models (power, exponential and logarithmic functions) for the calculation of the horizontal mass transport (hmt), as compared to the linear spline interpolation for the cyclone dust sampler (cds) and one with a cone (cdsc), modified wilson and cooke trap (mwac) and big spring number eight (bsne). for the purposes of this study, wind erosion was measured at wind velocities of 2–7 ms^−1 on a clay loam soil in wind tunnel experiments. the test results showed that the hmt of bsne, mwac, cds, and cdsc samplers, calculated by these equations, fitted well to each other (p<0.01), such that the hmts of mwac (hmtm), cds (hmts), cdsc (hmtsc), respectively, were 1.10-1.45, 2.28-2.45, 2.48-2.81 times higher than that of bsne (hmtb), depending on the equation used. the power equation yielded the best adjustments to hmf as a function of the height. moreover, the relative efficiencies of cds, cdsc, and mwac varied between 140-200%, 220-540%, and 410-860%, respectively. compared to the mwac sampler, cds and cdsc samplers showed a rapid drop in relative efficiency with increasing wind speed. these higher efficiencies of the cds and cdsc relative to bsne were attributed to its cyclone design. adding cone to the cdsc sampler increases its efficiency compared to the cds sampler, protects the settled dust from resuspension.