Wind tunnel experiments on natural snow drift.

Previous wind tunnel experiments on snow drift usually used artificial snow as a substitute of natural snow, which can not fully reflect the motion characteristics of snow drift in natural environments. In this paper we conducted a series of experiments in wind tunnel to investigate the motion of natural snow (fresh snow and old snow), which was collected out-door without destroying the surface structure. The results indicated that the threshold velocity of fresh snow is less than that of old snow, and that the mass flux rates of the two kinds of snow exponentially decrease with height whereas the snow transport rate increases exponentially with wind velocity. Based on the PIV measuring of the velocities of snow particles over two kinds of terrains (flat ground and roadbed), we found that the particle velocity obeys a Gaussian distribution for flat ground, top surface and leeward slope of the roadbed. However, for the windward slope of roadbed the particle velocity distribution displays poor correlation with a Gaussian function due to the acceleration of snow particles when saltating across the slop. Statistical analysis showed that impacting and liftoff velocities of snow particles also obey Gaussian distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]