Abstract
We introduce a device that employs a forced air ventilation technique to rapidly produce wet snow from dry dendritic artificial snow. The dry snow is spread in a wet snow making box that has perforated plates at the top and bottom; each hole has a diameter of 5mm. The bottom of the wet snow making box is connected to a thermostatic box that maintains the air temperature at 4℃. Then，air is sucked in from the upper surface of the wet snow making box to uniformly ventilate all layers of the dry snow. Using this device，wet snow with a liquid water content of 1-3% can be produced from dry snow at −10℃ within about 10 min. The most significant merit of this device is that the wet snow produced retains the shape of the dendritic crystals. Using both natural and artificial snow as a starting material, this device can produce wet snow via a facile, rapid, and highly reproducible process. Therefore, it can contribute to improving the efficiency and accuracy of artificial snow accretion experiments.
