Simulations of Thermally-Driven Winds on Mars: The Gale Crater Case
摘要
Thermally-driven winds, a type of flows that develop within the planetary boundary layer (PBL), have been observed and predicted in a wide variety of sites on Mars. Among these winds, there are the so-called slope flows, which occur over mountain slopes mainly due to temperature gradients between the ground and the atmosphere. In this research, the objective is to simulate the formation of thermally-driven slope flows on Mars for conditions corresponding to the four different seasons, represented by the fall equinox, winter solstice, spring equinox, and summer solstice. The focus is placed on the Gale Crater, where observational data have been gathered by the Curiosity rover, as part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, and in particular on Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp), located in the center of the crater, where thermally-driven slope flows have been reported. The flow behavior is described by the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with the Boussinesq approximation, using OpenFOAM, an open source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. Numerical results show very good agreement with in situ observations, showing that these simulations can serve as predictive tools for slope winds on Mars.