Researchers discover midair collisions enhance the strength of sandstorms
Friday, August 9, 2013 - 08:50
in Physics & Chemistry
(Phys.org) —A small team of researchers from China, Brazil and Switzerland has found that midair collisions that occur between grains of sand during a sandstorm lead to an increase in storm strength rather than a decrease as would be expected. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team describe how they developed a 3D computer simulation that was able to show how grains of sand behave in a storm and what they observed as a result.