Ice particle impact on solid walls: Size modeling of reemited fragments

The present work deals with ice particle fragmentation resulting from impact on a solid wall. First, a semi-empirical model to predict the size of the largest reemited fragment is presented. It is based on the energy-horizon theory of fragmentation developed by Grady (1988) in combination with a strain rate scaling based on the indentation radius formed upon impact. Model predictions are in good agreement with experimental data from six different sources. In addition, an empirical fit to the ice fragment volume distribution is sought. Different candidate fits, namely power law, Weibull and lognormal are proposed and evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively. The fragment volume distributions appear to exhibit different trends for impact conditions representative of ice crystals and hailstones. For this reason, a less accurate yet more robust power law fit is proposed to model the available fragment volume distribution data.