Innovative artificial fog production device - A technical facility for research activities.

Abstract

A new innovative fog production device has been developed in close cooperation with partners of a European project called “FOG” funded by the EU. It is set up in the fog chamber of the road and bridges laboratory at Clermont-Ferrand. Most of the activities of this laboratory are dedicated to road safety but the facility is open to any other activity, such as environmental research. The recent developments consist in setting up a controllable device able to produce stable visibility levels and homogeneous fog, representative of various types of natural water droplet distribution. The fog characteristics were determined and compared to natural fog. Results are presented for a selection of conditions including stabilized visibility levels for dense fog, less than 50 metres meteorological visibility and two kinds of droplet distribution