Determination of efficiency of Vaseline slide and

Authors: Feras Youssef Gunay Erpul Pieter Bogman Wim M Cornelis Donald Gabriels

Publish Date: 2007/10/03

Volume: 55, Issue: 4, Pages: 741-750

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Abstract

The trap efficiency of a catcher in wind erosion measurements plays a significant role and in many cases suspension trap efficiencies at high wind velocities are still unknown The sediment trap efficiency generally changes with particles size and with wind speed In this study the efficiency of Vaseline Slide VS and Modified Wilson and Cooke MWAC catchers were determined with different sand particle sizes 50 75 50–75 200–400 and 400–500 μm at a fixed wind speed 133 ms−1 and with different soil textures at different wind velocities 103 123 and 143 ms−1 in the wind tunnel of the International Center for Eremology ICE Ghent University Belgium The traps were placed at different heights 4 65 13 20 120 and 192 cm for VS and 15 3 5 8 11 and 30 cm for MWAC to catch saltating and suspended sediments in a 12m long 12m wide and 32m high working section of the wind tunnel In the sand particle experiments the efficiency of the VS catcher was 92 for particles smaller than 50 μm and decreased with increasing particles size falling to 22 for 400–500 μm particle size at 134 ms−1 However the MWAC’s efficiency was 0 for particles smaller than 50 μm and increased with increasing particle size to 695 at 400–500 μm In the experiments with different soil textures the efficiency of each catcher significantly changed with soil and with wind speed It also considerably varied with the catchers for instance for sand S the MWAC efficiency was very high 674 1134 and 905 at 103 123 and 144 ms−1 respectively while the efficiency of VS was relatively very low 52 44 and 19 at 103 123 and 144 ms−1 respectively Results indicated that the efficiency depends critically on the particle size type of catcher and wind speed and these could be helpful to increase the robustness of wind erosion measurements

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