Uniaxial Strength and Deformation Properties of Machine-Made Snow

Abstract

Snow as a construction material has been used for centuries, with igloos among the first examples. Each winter, snow and ice villages, buildings, and artwork are built in many places around the world. Machine-made snow manufactured by snow guns is commonly used for constructions made of snow. However, only a few basic studies on machine-made snow have been published. Knowledge based on experience and studies on natural snow constitute the basis for constructions made using snow and ice. Through material tests on machine-made snow used for construction, data on important physical and mechanical properties have been established that aim to improve and optimize safe constructions made from snow. Strength tests have been performed using two different qualities of machine-made snow. Specimens used for testing were cut out from one block of snow that had a coarse-grained structure with clusters of ice in the snow and from one block of snow with a fine-grained and homogeneous structure. The density for each tested snow sample was measured and strength tests were performed at different deformation rates to investigate the relationship between mechanical properties and deformation rate or strain rate. The load response curves achieved from the strength tests were used to evaluate compressive strength, Young's modulus, and the residual modulus. The results show that compressive strength increases with increasing density. Increasing compressive strength with an increasing strain rate was also observed for fine-grained snow quality specimens, whereas no similar tendency was observed for coarse-grained snow. The residual modulus increased with an increasing strain rate up to a certain critical value for the fine-grained machine-made snow specimens. Regression analysis was used to investigate whether any dependence was observed between the calculated mechanical properties; no further relationship between the mechanical and the physical properties was noticed.

Dynamic Observations of the Densification of Polar Firn Under Compression Using a Micro‐Computed Tomograph

“…Kinosita (1967) conducted compression tests on natural snow samples with densities ranging from 150‐450 kg m −3 at temperatures from −30°C to 0°C at different strain rates, and observed a ductile‐to‐brittle transition at a critical strain rate ranging from 7.8 × 10 −3 to 8.3 × 10 −2 s −1 , which slightly changed with temperatures and densities of snow. Similarly, Lintzen and Edeskar (2015) performed compression tests on man‐made snow with densities ranging from 510 to 560 kg m −3 at −10°C at different strain rates, and found the critical strain rate for the ductile‐to‐brittle transition was ∼3 × 10 −3 s −1 . Wang et al.…”

“…Similarly, Lintzen and Edeskar (2015) performed compression tests on man-made snow with densities ranging from 510 to 560 kg m −3 at −10°C at different strain rates, and found the critical strain rate for the ductile-to-brittle transition was ∼3 × 10 −3 s −1 . Wang et al (2021) also performed compression tests at temperatures from −25°C to −5°C at different strain rates on six sets of snow, which were compacted from the snowfall to densities ranging from 350 to 600 kg m −3 , and found the ductile-to-brittle transition occurred at strain rates ranging from ∼8.3 × 10 −4 s −1 to ∼2.5 × 10 −3 s −1 .…”

Snow contact characterisation of cross-country skis: A macro-scale study of the apparent contact

“…where ν = 0.3 is the Poisson number, E base is the elastic modulus of the ski base and E counter is the elastic modulus of the counter surface. Lintzén and Edeskär [42] investigated uni-axial compression of snow of different types, and they estimated the Young's modulus of the snow to be between 100 and 250 MPa for new machine-made snow, and between 50 and 350 MPa for old machine-made snow. The contact mechanics calculations simulating the ski-snow contact performed in this work, are therefore conducted for Young's moduli within the range (20 MPa, 400 MPa.…”

Introduction of Open-Source Engineering Tools for the Structural Modeling of a Multilayer Mountaineering Ski under Operation

“…To study the behavior of the ski during a downhill turn, the ski-snow interaction had to be modeled. For doing this, the Lintzèn [19] model of snow was used. It is based on experimental compression tests on big frozen snow cylindrical samples.…”

“…In particular, the ski-snow interaction was simulated. The snow was modeled according to Lintzèn [19]. Different roll angles and loads were simulated to better understand the behavior of the ski under operation.…”