DisastersNew hurricane simulator to help find way to minimize storms’ destruction

Hurricanes in Miami can range from just rain and light wind to shredded houses, overturned cars, massive flooding, and death. Now, almost twenty years after Hurricane Andrew, Florida International University (FIU) is using a new way to prevent the massive damage a hurricane can create.

The Miami Herald reports that FIU’s International Hurricane Research Center has announced their new $8 million facility and the nation’s most powerful hurricane simulator. Name the Wall of Wind, the double decked stack of twelve 6-foot fans will be used to test and improve building designs and materials in order to keep building and structures standing in case of category 5 hurricanes such as Andrew.

“The bottom line is the research we are doing here will not only save lives but also reduce property losses and therefore premiums,” said Shahid Hamid, director of the research center’s laboratory for insurance, economic and financial research.

The school tested the simulator with two mock buildings, each about the size of a garden shed. One of the structures used pre-Andrew construction codes and the other was built with stronger standards enacted after Andrew, including heavy duty nails, thicker plywood sheeting, and heavier roofing felt along with other changes.

The results were recorded and the fans were cranked up to 160 mph. As expected, the first things to go were roof shingles. The surprise was that pre-Andrew designs, rated for just 60 mph, held up nearly as well as heavier products, rated for 130 mph. The newer, stronger shingles started to tear off at 109 mph, a category 2 strength. When the wind got above a category 3, both structures started to go.

The director of the wind engineering research as FIU’s Hurricane center, Arindam Chowdhury, said the new codes are an improvement. Although the roof of the newer structure looked torn up, the heavier tar paper and thicker ply wood stayed in place and kept out the wind driven water that is responsible for most hurricane damage.

“Clearly, a 130-mph rating is not really a 130-mph shingle,’’ Chowdhury told the Miami Herald. “This is what the Wall of Wind is going to bring, really putting products to the test.’’

Chowdhury also said that computer data can not duplicate the full-scale results of the simulator, which is capable of topping 157 mph and can come close to the 170 mph wind that Hurricane Andrew beat Miami with.

Hurricane Andrew, which struck on 24 August 1992, caused an estimated $26.5 billion in damage, but only a small portion of South Miami-Dade County felt its strongest gusts. The storm exposed shoddy building practices that contributed to the losses but also showed engineers, along with home owners and builders, that they still had a lot to learn about construction of homes and offices capable of standing up to major hurricanes.

The original Wall of Wind was constructed in 2005, and included a 2-fan system. That system was upgraded in 2007 when FIU built a 6-fan system, powered by gas engines and airboat props. The systems were built with private funding from the We Will Rebuild campaign which was created after Andrew hit. They have been able to extend the program through state and federal support from the insurance industry as well.

Chowdhury thinks that the new more powerful version can help make sure that offices and homes that are considered “hurricane resistant” can actually perform under the conditions of serious real-world conditions.

“What we are doing here is more like holistic testing,’’ he said. “You’re not just testing individual components; you’re testing the entire system. That’s very important.’’