Feasibility analysis using a porous media model to simulate the wind protection effect of windbreak forests

Abstract The porous media model theory has been applied to the study of soil wind erosion, and the accuracy of simulation test results using the resistance source term instead of the windbreak geometry model has received much attention. A common shrub windbreak was used as the research object, and a porous media model with a similar shape was established to synthetically compare the wind tunnel experimental data with the results of computational fluid dynamics numerical simulations, analyze its feasibility for windbreak research instead of wind tunnel experiments, and try to elaborate the causes of errors arising from numerical simulations. The relative standard deviation of more than 80% of the sampling points in the porous media model and wind tunnel experimental results was less than 5%, and the wind speed difference at the maximum relative standard deviation was only 0.257 m s −1 ; the difference in wind speed variation was most obvious on the leeward side of the lower part of the vegetation canopy, but this error does not affect the wind speed recovery trend of the Caragana shrub/forest belt array. The combination of numerical simulations and wind tunnel experiments gives a reference for the accuracy of porous media models used to simulate plant wind protection.