Two-way coupled Eulerian-Eulerian simulations of drifting snow with viscous treatment of the snow phase

A novel two-way coupled Eulerian-Eulerian CFD formulation is presented, to simulate drifting snow based on a new viscous model of the snow phase. This approach allows explicit resolution of the saltation layer without resorting to empiricism, unlike other Eulerian-Eulerian approaches based on mixture formulations and one-way coupling. Initial validations carried out against detailed snowflux, airflow, and turbulence measurements in a controlled drifting snow wind tunnel experiment show the present approach is capable of accurately predicting snowflux, airflow profiles, as well as snow transport under developing and nearly developed flow conditions, when polydispersity is taken into account.