Industrial Consulting - Research - Development

OPTIFLOW

Computational Simulation

Mitigation Measures

Design

Site Characteristics Optimization

Windblown Sand Modeling and Mitigation

Windblown sand problemsWindblown sand represents an issue for every human artefacts, as infrastructures (railways, roads), buildings (tows, villages) as well as farms and archeological sites, in arid and costal regions worldwide.

It can lead to dramatic dangers such as frequent service interruptions, safety of humans, tremendous maintenance cost, and it happens in a number of different ways and on different time scales.

Each of them requires special attention during project design and can only be faced with proper knowledge, prediction tools and simulation models.

Murzuq rafinery Libia

arid and desert regions

active sand deposit

costal dunes

Industrial facilitiesTransport infrastructures

Built enviroment Historical sites and Farms

Oil pipeline Central Sahara

Building in Waldport Oregon, USA

Nouakchott Town Mauritania

Begrawiya Pyramids Sudan

Palm Plantation Algeria

Railway line Marocco

Sand on road French Coastline

Tailored SolutionsThe joint Windblown Sand Modeling and Mitigation Group has developed modeling and design competences to carry on sound and complete sand mitigation studies for every kind of infrastructural projects.

Sand properties

Wind roses Sand side net drift

CFD-ETDA simulations

Ad-hoc mitigation measure

Terrain morphology

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4%

6%

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Project

0.0 1.20.4 0.6 0.8ρ [kg/m ]3

Predict the amaount of incoming windblown sand over the project site. All the data are summarized in what we called "Side Actual Net Drift"

A model of Erosion-Transport-Deposition-Avalnche has been developed by our team. Quantify the efficacy of mitigation measures through computational simulation.

Workwith nature to reduce the impact of the windblown sand on an infrastructure or building

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MAX Performances - MIN cost

Optimization process to maximize perfomances and cost reduction

ReferencesWSMM group has been and currently is involved in sand mitigation

consultancy services for major railway projects in Gulf Cooperation Council

countries:

Politecnico di Torino is a “Research

University” acknowledged” as a centre of

excellence in all over the world for the

qualifying research areas of Architecture

and Engineering. The development of the

fields of excellence, the investment on

frontier subjects, and also the support to

the curiosity driven research allow a virtous

mix of basis and applied research. The

University aims at networking with the

socio-economical context and at opening

new partnerships with companies and

multinationals.

Optiflow is a Computational Fluid Dynamics

(CFD) French consulting company, with

more than 15 years of experience in the

field of Computational Wind Engineering.

Optiflow consulting activities helped

architects and engineers improve wind and

ventilation performances on more than 100

major architectural projects worldwide.

Optiflow has a strong record in Research

and Development activities and cultivates

technology transfer relationships with a

number of public and private research

institutions.

Contactswsmm@polito.it www.polito.it/wsmm

OPTIFLOW

WSMM group actively promotes Research and Development activities

on the subject, in collaboration with a number of industrial partners.

2013 – Designer’s

subconsultant for Sand

Mitigation preliminary

and detailed design, 900

km-long Saudi

Landbridge, KSA

2014 – Tenderer’s consultant for

Sand Mitigation Methodology

Oman Rail Project – 200 km-

long Segment 1, Oman

2019 – Tenderers’ consultant

for Sand Mitigation

Methodology Etihad Railway

Network – 130 km-long Stage 2

- Package D, UAE2018 – Tenderers’ consultant

for Sand Mitigation

Methodology Etihad Railway

Network – 130 km-long Stage

2 - Package A, UAE