Review of compressed snow mechanics: Testing methods

Snow is a complex material that is difficult to characterize especially due to its high compressibility and temperature-sensitive nonlinear viscoelasticity. Snow mechanics has been intensively investigated by avalanche and army researchers for decades. However, fewer research studies were published for the compacted snow, defined as snow with a density in a range of 370–560 kg/m3. This review focuses on the various testing methods that are used especially to characterize the behavior of compacted snow under compressive and shear loading. The working principles, inherent assumptions, and advantages/disadvantages of the devices are summarized. In addition, some of the important material properties of snow like density, elastic modulus, etc., and their measurement is highlighted. Lastly, a correlation of the testing methods to commonly used approaches in modeling snow is presented. Overall, we believe that this study can help to better understand the existing test data related to compacted snow and guide future testing in this field.