The impact of spacing between beach buildings on aeolian eriosion and deposition patterns: A numerical study

Sandy beaches are very attractive to people worldwide. The attractiveness of sandy beaches increases the demands for the construction of buildings at the beach-dune interface. These buildings alter the local airflow patterns in the surrounding area which, in turn, induces changes in the aeolian sediment transport and morphological patterns around buildings at the beach. In the present study, the impact of spacing between adjacent buildings in a rowon the erosion and deposition patterns in the surrounding area and downstream is studied.A computational fluid dynamics model using OpenFOAM is developed to simulate the three-dimensional airflow patterns around a row of ten full-scale buildings at the beach. The spacing between two adjacent buildings is systematically changed between 0.1wand4w, where w is the buildings’ width.Based on the horizontal wake flow patterns close to the bed, a spacing of 0.9w appears to be the critical spacing belowwhich the neighboring buildings significantly affect each other, and the secondary flow structures in the lee of buildings are quite complex.Results show different near-bed erosion and deposition patterns around buildings as the spacing between two adjacent buildings increases.The initial morphological changes around buildings are fully independent and buildings act as isolated buildings when the spacing between buildings increases to 4w.