In this study, experiments and simulations were conducted to investigate ice and snow. The ice sintering force as a function of temperature, pressing force (contact load), contact duration, and particle size during the primary stage of sintering was formulated using experimental methods along with an approximate, semi-analytic, close-form solution. It was shown that the ice sintering force increases nearly linear with increasing external pressing force but best approximated as a power law for dependency on both contact duration and particle size. Moreover, the exponent of the power law for size dependence is around the value predicted by general sintering theory. The temperature dependence of the sintering force is highly nonlinear and follows the Arrhenius equation. It was observed that at temperatures closer to the melting point, a liquid bridge is observed upon these paration of the contacted ice particles. The ratio of ultimate tensile strength of ice to the axial stress concentration factor in tension is found as an important factor in determining the sintering force, and a value of nearly 1.1 MPa was estimated to best catch the sintering force of ice in different conditions. From the temperature dependency, the activation energy is calculated to be around 41.4 kJ/mol, which is close to the previously reported value. Also, the results for the sintering force suggest that smaller particles are “stickier” than larger particles. Moreover, cavitation and surface cracking is observed during the formation of the ice particles and these can be one of the sources for the variations observed in the measured ice sintering force values.

The presence of a capillary bridge in contact between an ice particle and a "smooth" (or rough) Aluminum surface at relative humidity around 50% and temperatures below the melting point was experimentally demonstrated. Experiments were conducted under controlled temperature conditions and the mechanical instability of the bridge upon separation of the ice particle from the Aluminum surface with a constant speed was considered. It was observed that a liquid bridge with a more pronounced volume at temperatures near the melting point is formed. It was showen that the separation distance is proportional to the cube root of the volume of the bridge. The volume of the liquidbridge is used to estimate the thickness of the liquid layer on the ice particle and the estimated value was shown to be within the range reported in the literature. The thickness of the liquid layer decreases from nearly 56 nm at -1.7◦C to 0.2 nm at -12.7◦C. The dependence can be approximated with a power law, proportional to (TM − T)−β, where β < 2.6. We further observe that for a rough surface, the capillary bridge formation in the considered experimental conditions vanishes.

The Discrete Element Method (DEM) was employed to simulate the filling behavior of dry snow. Snow as a heterogeneous, hot material which is constituted from spherical ice particles which can form bonds. The bonding behavior of ice particles is important in determining the macroscopic behavior of snow. The bond diameter of ice-ice contacts as a function of time, compressive load, and strain rate is used and a DEM for dry snow was developed and programmed in MATLAB. A beam element with implemented damage model was used in the simulation. The simulated parameters were macroscopic angle of repose, packing density, and surface conditions as a function of temperature and fillingrate. The DEM results were able to verify the existing published experimental data. The simulation results showed that angle of repose of snow decreased with decreasing the temperature, the surface became irregular due to particles rotation and re-arrangement for lower falling speeds of particles, and density increased with depth of deposition.