WIND TUNNEL STUDY OF VERTICAL PROFILE OF DRIFTING SNOW

In previous wind tunnel experiments on drifting snow, the artificial or compacted snow is usually used as a substitute for the natural snow. But there is a big difference between the natural snow and its substitutes in their physical and mechanical properties. In this paper, the movement of the fresh snow is studied by the particle image velocimetry, including the distributions of the snow size with the height, and the vertical profile of the mean particle size and the snow particle number flux. The results show that the snow transport rate can be expressed as an exponential function at the high friction velocity (u_* > 0:5 m/s), and a power function at the low friction velocity (u_* < 0:5 m/s). In overall, the transport rate linearly increases with the friction velocity.