In heavy snowy region, snow cornices on roofs are serious problem of the architectural planning and structural calculation of snow load. Drifting snow frequently occurs on roofs in dry snow regions. Consequently snow accumulation on roofs increases especially on the leeward side. The authors studied snow cornices as regards the growing process of a cornice on buildings, the development of a cornice concerning the snowdrift on roofs. We carried out field observation of snow cornices and measuring of the snow depth distribution on buildings with flat roof in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan. The following results were obtained. (1) Snowdrifts nearby parapet on the leeward side have a great effect on growing process of a snow cornice. (2) When snowdrifts are over parapet height, snow cornices are formed. (3) Snow cornice elongating hangs down by self-weight, and then another snowdrift deposits it. (4) Snow cornice is grown by the heavy snowfall (10cm/day) with mean wind speed exceeded 3m/s.

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Thermal insulation method is sometimes used for prevention of frost heave damage at road construction in cold regions. One of the major problems associated with conventional thermal insulators is their low strength resulting in difficulties in handling.While very high correlation is found between density and thermal conductivity of many materials, correlation between density and compressive strength of many materials is also very high. These relations are expected to be useful for finding new materials for thermal insulation method.For this purpose blocks of thinned woods or scraped plastics seemed to be useful from the standpoint of the cost and the recycling of waste materials. In this article thinned woods mean the young woods those were cut and thrown away from the forest for well growing of remained woods.

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