  The motion of thin curved falling particles is ubiquitous in both nature and
industry but is not yet widely examined. Here, we describe an experimental
study on the dynamics of thin cylindrical shells resembling broken bottle
fragments settling through quiescent fluid and homogeneous anisotropic
turbulence. The particles have Archimedes numbers based on the mean descent
velocity $0.75 \times 10^4 \lesssim Ar \lesssim 2.75 \times 10^4$. Turbulence
reaching a Reynolds number of $Re_\lambda \approx 100$ is generated in a water
tank using random jet arrays mounted in a co-planar configuration. After the
flow becomes statistically stationary, a particle is released and its
three-dimensional motion is recorded using two orthogonally positioned
high-speed cameras. We propose a simple pendulum model that accurately captures
the velocity fluctuations of the particles in still fluid and find that
differences in the falling style might be explained by a closer alignment
between the particle's pitch angle and its velocity vector. By comparing the
trajectories under background turbulence with the quiescent fluid cases, we
measure a decrease in the mean descent velocity in turbulence for the
conditions tested. We also study the secondary motion of the particles and
identify descent events that are unique to turbulence such as 'long gliding'
and 'rapid rotation' events. Lastly, we show an increase in the radial
dispersion of the particles under background turbulence and correlate the
timescale of descent events with the local settling velocity.
