A Basic Study on Vertical-Type, Snow Blower Fences

Abstract

Horizontal snow blower fences now widely applied have such a problem that they will turn into drift fences when the wind direction is reversed, loosing the blowing effect of the fences thereafter. It is noted that even in the same locality, the wind direction is not constant, but is reversed with a high frequency.
We succeeded in developing a novel type of effective snow blower fences, i. e. vertical-type, snow blower fences on the basis of a new concept resulting from our fluid dynamic studies of the problem and our extensive tests for more than 10 years including laboratory-scale water tank tests and full-scale outdoor tests in the I shikari district in Hokkaido. We have found that the vertical type, snow blower fences have a high snow blowing capacity without causing any drifting phenomena, even when the wind direction is reversed.