Sand transport is the main manifestation of sand damage in the arid and semiarid regions globally. It is a huge challenge to stabilize mobile sandy and change them into stable productive ecosystems. The establishment of simulated shrubs is one of the most effective measures to solve the above difficulties as a novel sand-barrier. To clarify simulated shrubs’ role in the process of ecological restoration. It will be greatly helpful to incorporate the shelter device proposed in the present work into landscape models for aeolian soil transport, to optimize the parameters associated with the sand-barrier characteristics for aeolian soil stabilization at the field scale. A series of wind tunnel experiments were conducted to analyze the variations of soil grain-size of simulated shrubs with different spatial configurations, row spaces, and net wind speeds. Further, the soil grain-size parameters were calculated by the classic method proposed by Folk and Ward to clarify the change of soil particles resulted from the blocking effects. The average grain-size content of simulated shrubs with different spatial configurations, row spaces, and net wind speeds was dominated by medium sand and fine sand, and the total percentage was more than 90%. Moreover, the sand deposition of simulated shrubs with different spatial configurations increased with the improvement of wind speeds. The average sand deposition of spindle-shaped simulated shrubs in 17.5 × 17.5 cm and broom-shaped simulated shrubs in 17.5 × 26.25 cm under different net wind speeds was the least. The effects of row spaces on average grain-size parameters increased with the improvement of net wind speeds. By calculating the correct characteristics of specific shelter devices proposed in the present work, all of these findings suggest that the application of simulated shrubs will be an important component to further extend ecological engineering projects in arid and semiarid regions.

风沙输送是全球干旱半干旱地区风沙危害的主要表现形式。稳定流动沙地并使其转变为稳定的生产生态系统是一个巨大的挑战。建立模拟灌木丛作为新型沙障是解决上述难题的最有效措施之一。阐明模拟灌木在生态恢复过程中的作用。将本工作中提出的遮蔽装置纳入风沙运移景观模型中，以优化与现场尺度风沙稳定沙障特性相关的参数，将非常有帮助。通过一系列风洞实验，分析了不同空间配置、行距和净风速的模拟灌木土壤粒径的变化。进一步，采用Folk和Ward提出的经典方法计算土壤颗粒尺寸参数，以明确阻塞效应引起的土壤颗粒变化。不同空间配置、行距、净风速的模拟灌木平均粒径含量以中砂和细砂为主，总比例均在90%以上。此外，不同空间配置的模拟灌木的沙沉量随着风速的提高而增加。不同净风速下，17.5×17.5 cm纺锤形模拟灌木和17.5×26.25 cm扫帚形模拟灌木平均沉沙量最少。行间距对平均粒度参数的影响随着净风速的提高而增大。通过计算本工作中提出的特定遮蔽装置的正确特征，所有这些发现表明，模拟灌木的应用将成为进一步扩展干旱和半干旱地区生态工程项目的重要组成部分。