Mechanism of the snowdrift development processes in a non-equilibrium states around snow protection facilities

Research Project

Project/Area Number	25350513
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Section	一般
Research Field	Natural disaster / Disaster prevention science
Research Institution	National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention
Principal Investigator	Nemoto Masaki 国立研究開発法人防災科学技術研究所, 観測・予測研究領域雪氷防災研究センター, 主任研究員 (30425516)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	TORITA HIROYUKI 地方独立行政法人北海道立総合研究機構, 森林研究本部林業試験場, 研究主幹 (50414264)
Project Period (FY)	2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2015)
Budget Amount *help	¥4,550,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,050,000) Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000) Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000) Fiscal Year 2013: ¥2,210,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥510,000)
Keywords	雪氷学 / 吹雪 / 吹きだまり / 防雪柵
Outline of Final Research Achievements	Snowdrift development processes in a non-equilibrium state is of particular importance to investigate the effective and optimal position of snow protection facilities. Field observations for a snow fence revealed that 1) the starting point and the peak of a snowdrift moves toward the fence with the occurrence of blowing snow, 2) the rate of snowdrift development rapidly increase in the lee side of the fence, with the development of snowdrift, and 3) the peak point of a snowdrift is an effective indicator to represent the non-equilibrium state of snowdrift. Further, applying wind-tunnel experiments in a cold room using actual snow particles and computational fluid dynamics simulations, blowing snow and snowdrift around the snow fence was estimated and compared with the observed data.