A Quantification of the Effects of Erosion on the Productivity of Purple Soils

Research on the effects of soil erosion on soil productivity has attracted increasing attention.Purple soil is one of the main soil types in China and plays an important role in the national economy.However,the relationship between erosion and the productivity of purple soils has not been well studied.The purpose of this research was to determine if soil depth,which is dependent on the rate of erosion,has an influence on crop yield and growth.Plot and pot experiments at different soil depths were performed.Results indicate that soils from different parental materials had different growth features and crop yields due to the differential fertility of the derived soils.The yield reduction rate increases exponentially with the depth of eroded soil(level of erosion).The yield reduction rate per unit eroded soil horizon(10 cm) is approximately 10.5% for maize and wheat.

The escape mechanisms of the proto-atmosphere on terrestrial planets:"boil-off" escape,hydrodynamic escape and impact erosion

Atmospheric escape is an essential process that affects the evolution of the proto-atmosphere.The atmospheric escape of early terrestrial planets was extremely rapid compared with the current scenarios,and the main atmospheric escape modes were also quite different.During the dissipation of the nebula disk,the primordial atmosphere experienced a brief but violent"boiling"escape,in which most of the primordial atmosphere was lost.After the nebula disk dissipates,hydrodynamic escape and impact erosion are the two most important mass-loss mechanisms for the proto-atmosphere.Hydrodynamic escape is a rapid atmospheric escape process caused by strong solar radiation,while impact erosion refers to the process in which small-large or giant impacts erode the proto-atmosphere.In the early solar system,there were other escape mechanisms,such as non-thermodynamic escape and Jeans escape,but it is generally believed that these mechanisms have relatively little impact.Here we systematically introduce the above-mentioned atmospheric escape mechanisms and then make some suggestions for the existing problems and future research for atmospheric escape models.

STUDY ON THE MECHANISMS OF EROSION OF METALS AT LOW IMPACT ANGLE

The mechanisms of solid particle erosion of several pure metals and steels at low impact angle were studied comprehensively by SEM observations of the worn surface,wear debris analysis, subsurface hardness measurements,incremental erosion tests and sequential erosion study techniques. It was found that at the beginning of erosion,craters and lips were formed on the surfaces of ductile metals due to the deformation caused by the impacting of the particles. The deformed lips were then forged back and forth again and again in erosion process. As a result , small chips of deformed lips were stripped off continuously in the process. All of the evidences show that the erosion mechanisms are encompassed mainly by the process of plastic deformation,lip formation and spelling with ductile metals,while microcutting is more easy to occur with hardened steels.

Numerical analysis of hydroabrasion in a hydrocyclone

The velocity profiles and separation efficiency curves of a hydrocyclone were predicted by an Euler-Euler approach using a computational fluid dynamics tool ANSYS-CFX 14.5. The Euler-Euler approach is capable of considering the particle-particle interactions and is appropriate for highly laden liquid-solid mixtures. Pre- dicted results were compared and validated with experi- mental results and showed a considerably good agreement. An increase in the particle cut size with increasing solid concentration of the inlet mixture flow was observed and discussed. In addition to this, the erosion on hydrocyclone walls constructed from stainless steel 410, eroded by sand particles （mainly SiOz）, was predicted with the Euler-La- grange approach. In this approach, the abrasive solid particles were traced in a Lagrangian reference frame as discrete particles. The increases in the input flow velocity, solid concentration, and the particle size have increased the erosion at the upper part of the cylindrical body of the hydrocyclone, where the tangential inlet flow enters the hydrocyclone. The erosion density in the area between the cylindrical to conical body area, in comparison to other parts of the hydrocyclone, also increased considerably. Moreover, it was observed that an increase in the particle shape factor from 0.1 to 1.0 leads to a decrease of almost 70 % in the average erosion density of the hydrocyclone wall surfaces.

An erosion model for the discrete element method

A shear impact energy model （SIEM） of erosion suitable for both dilute and dense particle flows is pro- posed based on the shear impact energy of particles in discrete element method （DEM） simulations. A number of DEM simulations are performed to determine the relationship between the shear impact energy predicted by the DEM model and the theoretical erosion energy. Simulation results show that nearly one-quarter of the shear impact energy will be converted to erosion during an impingement. According to the ratio of the shear impact energy to the erosion energy, it is feasible to predict erosion from the shear impact energy, which can be accumulated at each time step for each impingement during the DEM simulation. The total erosion of the target surface can be obtained by summing the volume of material removed from each impingement. The proposed erosion model is validated against experiment and results show that the SIEM combined with DEM accurately predicts abrasive erosions.