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We explore the process of modeling aeolian snow transport around buildings by proposing a set of similarity requirements on simulating a single snow fall event with drifting. The similarity criteria are used to guide our wind tunnel tests from the particle selection to the simulation set-up, including the determination of test wind speed, snowfall intensity and transported snow profile. In parallel, a specific field experiment on snow precipitation and drift around a 1-m prototype cube was achieved in Harbin to serve as the reference for the subsequent test validation. After reproducing a target wind and snow environment with a scale of 1:4 versus that of the prototype measurement, two verification tests were put forward using snow and substitution particles, which can mimic the effects of changing wind directions on the snow distribution. Herein, the wind tunnel and outside prototype results show good qualitative agreement in our limited range of length scales and particle properties. In future work, the range of scales and range of parameter values should be increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The typical resolution for long-term wind speed records that are publicly available in China is daily, this is too coarse for a sound analytical simulation of snowdrift on building roofs. Take Harbin, China as an example, an algorithm was proposed in this study to address this issue, where the commonly-used 2-parameter Weibull distribution was applied to fit the distribution of 10-min mean wind speed. A parameter estimation method, which combines the method of moment and cumulative probability, was proposed to estimate the parameters of Weibull distribution using very limited information on wind speed. The fitted probability model was validated using high-resolution wind speed data by comparing the snowdrift estimated by the modeled wind speed and that estimated by the actual wind speed. Finally, an analytical simulation of snowdrift on a flat roof was carried out to illustrate the application of the proposed model, and the probabilistic characteristic of the derived ground-to-roof conversion factors for snow loads were analyzed. It is indicated that the proposed model is easy to implement and provides a good estimation of the snowdrift on building roofs, and the derived conversion factors could be satisfactorily modeled using a Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution or a normal distribution. • An algorithm was proposed to incorporate very limited wind information into the analytical simulation of roof snow load. • The proposed algorithm is the first of its kind. • An analytical simulation of snowdrifts on a flat roof was carried out using the proposed algorithm. • Probabilistic characteristics of the derived ground-to-roof conversion factors were analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]