The homogenization techniques recently developed for the numerical study of the elastic behavior of snow are adapted to its non-linear visco-plastic behavior. Based on the definition of kinematically uniform boundary conditions, homogenization problems are applied to 3D-images obtained by X-ray tomography, and the mechanical response of snow samples of different densities is explored. An original post-processing approach in terms of viscous dissipated powers is defined in order to formulate the

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... macroscopic behavior of snow. Then, the ability of Abouaf models to account for snow visco-plastic behavior is shown and a homogenized constitutive equation is proposed based on a density parametrization. Finally, the mechanical responses of snow for classical laboratory tests are analyzed and compared with the proposed model.