The first mobile wind tunnel of Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences was successfully manufactured

The first mobile wind tunnel of Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was designed and manufactured by the Avic Aerodynamics Research Institute in May, 2011, which will be used to carry out the researches of blown sand movement, simulating sand dune formation and evolution, soil erosion control, sand disaster control for constructional engineering, and plant physiology and ecology under the disturbance of blown sand. The experiment of wind tunnel can be finished at different environments in the field and simulated underlying surface of different landscape types (such as farmland, gobi, woodland, dry salt lake, alluvial and pluvial plains, dry delta at the river end, interdune land of semi-fixed and mobile sand dunes, etc.) in laboratory.　　

The wind tunnel is composed of two transferable  wind tunnel (including two sets of equipment, field and laboratory), two-dimensional smoke wind tunnel which is used to observe and simulate the flow structure of shifting sand in laboratory, and observation system of sand transport flux. The testing length of the equipment is 8 m, which includes the measuring distance of 3.9 m with portable measuring orbit system and 4.1 m with the simple measuring system. The wind tunnel has a width of 1.3 m and a height of 1 m.　　 

The wind tunnel can be used to study the two-phase flow simulation of blown sand, the formation and evolution of aeolian landforms, the movement rule of sand material and aerodynamics, which can reveal the evolution of ground-surface’s sand movement process in oasis-desert-sand desert and benefit to blown sand control and the sustainable management of relative engineering.