Experimental study of perforated disks falling in turbulent air

Predicting the fall speed of frozen hydrometeors in the atmosphere is complicated by their unique geometries as well as by the air turbulence. Snowflakes and ice crystals often exhibit rimed branches resembling perforated shapes, which make them permeable to the air flow. This alters their wake dynamics in ways that have not been characterized in turbulence. As analogue to plate crystals, here we consider thin disks of 3 mm in diameter and compare geometries with and without perforations. These are dropped at controlled volume fractions into a large chamber generating a large region of approximately zero-mean-flow homogeneous air turbulence. Two turbulence levels are considered and contrasted with quiescent air conditions. The disks are imaged at 4300 Hz and their linear and rotational motion is reconstructed. Comparison of the solid and perforated disk behaviors in quiescent air shows that the perforated disks fall at a slower velocity than the solid disks. The perforated disks also fall more stably compared to the solid, which may either fall flat or tumble. In turbulence, both disk types experience a reduction in their average settling velocity, as compared to quiescent air, but the perforated disks are more mildly influenced by this effect.