Yoichi Ito

The flow structure in the wake of a fractal fence and the absence of an "inertial regime"

Recent theoretical work has highlighted the importance of multi-scale forcing of the flow for altering the nature of turbulence energy transfer and dissipation. In particular, fractal types of forcing have been studied. This is potentially of real significance in environmental fluid mechanics where multi-scale forcing is perhaps more common than the excitation of a specific mode. In this paper we report the first results studying the detail of the wake structure behind fences in a boundary layer where, for a constant porosity, we vary the average spacing of the struts and also introduce fractal fences. As expected, to first order, and in the far-wake region, in particular, the response of the fences is governed by their porosity. However, we show that there are some significant differences in the detail of the turbulent structure between the fractal and non-fractal fences and that these override differences in porosity. In the near wake, the structure of the fence dominates porosity effects and a modified wake interaction length seems to have potential for collapsing the data. With regards to the intermittency of the velocities, the fractal fences behave more similarly to homogeneous, isotropic turbulence. In addition, there is a high amount of dissipation for the fractal fences over scales that, based on the energy spectrum, should be dominated by inter-scale transfers. This latter result is consistent with numerical simulations of flow forced at multiple scales and shows that what appears to be an “inertial regime” cannot be as production and dissipation are both high.

Snow particle speeds in drifting snow

Knowledge of snow particle speeds is necessary for deepening our understanding of the internal structures of drifting snow. In this study, we utilized a snow particle counter (SPC) developed to observe snow particle size distributions and snow mass flux. Using high-frequency signals from the SPC transducer, we obtained the sizes of individual particles and their durations in the sampling area. Measurements were first conducted in the field, with more precise measurements being obtained in a boundary layer established in a cold wind tunnel. The obtained results were compared with the results of a numerical analysis. Data on snow particle speeds, vertical velocity profiles, and their dependence on wind speed obtained in the field and in the wind tunnel experiments were in good agreement: both snow particle speed and wind speed increased with height, and the former was always 1 to 2u2009m s−1 less than the latter below a height of 1u2009m. Thus, we succeeded in obtaining snow particle speeds in drifting snow, as well as revealing the dependence of particle speed on both grain size and wind speed. The results were verified by similar trends observed using random flight simulations. However, the difference between the particle speed and the wind speed in the simulations was much greater than that observed under real conditions. Snow transport by wind is an aeolian process. Thus, the findings presented here should be also applicable to other geophysical processes relating to the aeolian transport of particles, such as blown sand and soil.

Change in snow strength caused by rain

Abstract Rain-on-snow events can cause wet snow avalanches. Laboratory experiments were carried out to investigate the change in snow strength with increasing water content through rainwater percolation. Snowpack was artificially prepared consisting of a thin ice layer and fine compacted snow, and rainfall (2mmh–1) was artificially applied 22–25.5 and 49–52 hours after the snowpack was formed. Snow hardness was measured with a push–pull force gauge to indicate the snow strength before and after each rain-on-snow event. After the first rainfall, the upper half of the snowpack became wet and a rapid decrease in snow hardness was observed. After the second rainfall the rainwater penetrated the ice layer, high water content was observed above the ice layer but the hardness exceeded that estimated from an empirical relationship between hardness and water content. Micrographs of the snow particles suggest that the delay in grain coarsening observed near the wetting front induces the harder than estimated snow condition.