Artificial snow is perhaps the most irreplaceable thing in ski resorts located in the southern parts of the earth’s hemisphere. Due to the presence of special devices that produce such snow, you can make a real winter where it was not there at all. A striking example of this is the Sochi Olympics, because without artificial snow it would hardly have been possible to hold winter competitions practically in the subtropics. And today we will devote a separate article to this moment. So what is artificial snow made of?
How is the production
This substance is made by spraying water in the air. In this case, the liquid is sprayed in the device under high pressure. Thus, the nucleation process occurs when the liquid crystals solidify in the air and thereby form a snow mass. The sizes of these crystals are negligible and range from 0.1 to 10 microns (1 micron is equal to 0.001 millimeters).
What is artificial snow made of?
Other water droplets are layered on individual ice particles. As a result of this, larger crystals of icy water are formed. They are layered until they finally pass the path from the gun to the surface of the earth. This time is enough to get artificial snow. At home, of course, you are unlikely to be able to create such a "special effect." The fact is that for such work special technical equipment is involved, worth hundreds of thousands of rubles. And you can create artificial snow with your own hands, except perhaps from paper fiber or cotton wool, because the purchase of such equipment will be too unprofitable.
In order for crystals of the sprayed liquid to completely freeze during snow formation, falling to the ground, it is enough to use this equipment at an air temperature of -3 to -10 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, water particles freeze effectively and become covered with a sufficient layer of ice.
Benefits
The presence of a nucleator significantly increases the likelihood of snow formation. With each new drop of sprayed water you increase the volume of snow (in a few minutes you can create a layer of several tens of centimeters). Moreover, the nucleator can produce both natural nuclei (for example, grains of sand, particles of minerals and dust) and mechanical (a mixture of water and compressed air) and biological, in any case, this device will produce a large number of crystals with a minimum water content.
What is the output?
We have already examined what artificial snow is made of and found out that these are two natural components - water and air. And what these two substances turn the nucleator into by their actions is called crystals. In simple words, small droplets of water fly out of the gun, easily freezing at temperatures from -3 degrees Celsius. In addition, the nuclei of such particles look more natural, since they contain the already formed nucleus of the future crystal. At the same time, such artificial snow is very sensitive to positive temperatures. Since these particles have a low resistance to heat, at an air temperature of 0 or more degrees, they simply melt, and very quickly. By the way, from one cubic meter of water you can get up to 2-2.5 cubic meters of artificial snow.
What determines the quality of the produced crystals?
How high-quality and resistant to temperature extremes the snow will be depends on the pressure of the liquid formed in the snow cannon, the design of the nozzle of the tool and, of course, the humidity and heating of the air itself.
So, in the article we examined what artificial snow is made of and what properties it has.