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A stochastic model for sand sorting in a wind-tunnel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2016

O. Barndorff-Nielsen and
J. N. Darroch
O. Barndorff-Nielsen*
Affiliation:
Aarhus University
J. N. Darroch*
Affiliation:
Flinders University
*
∗ Postal address: Afdeling for Teoretisk Statistik, Matematisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, DK-8000 Aarhus, Denmark.
∗∗ Postal address: School of Mathematical Sciences, Flinders University of South Australia, Bedford Park, South Australia 5042, Australia.
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Abstract

The wind exerts a sorting effect on particles of sands and, under certain stable conditions that occur frequently but whose nature is little understood, the sorting results in log-size distributions of the hyperbolic form, first noted by R. A. Bagnold. Here, for wind-tunnel experiments a stochastic model is constructed which exhibits a sorting effect deriving from the dependence of distance travelled on the size of the single particle. Under rather specific, experimentally testable assumptions the model reproduces log-size distributions which are of the hyperbolic type and show a variation with distance along the wind tunnel that accords with experimental findings of R. A. Bagnold.

Keywords

COMPOUND POISSON PROCESSGENERALISED INVERSE GAUSSIANHYPERBOLIC DISTRIBUTIONSIZE DISTRIBUTIONS OF SAND GRAINSVELOCITY OF SAND GRAINS

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Advances in Applied Probability , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 1981, pp. 282 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 1981 

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References

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