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Giant Lab Replicates Category 3 Hurricanes

Posted by timothy on from the indoor-skydiving dept.

Pickens writes "The WSJ reports that a new $40 million research center built by the Institute for Business & Home Safety in Richburg, SC features a massive test chamber as tall as a six-story building that can hold nine 2,300-square-foot homes on a turntable where they can be subjected to tornado-strength winds generated by 105 giant fans to simulate a Category 3 hurricane. The goal is to improve building codes and maintenance practices in disaster-prone regions even though each large hurricane simulation costs about $100,000. The new IBHS lab will be the first to replicate hurricanes with winds channeling water through homes and ripping off roofs, doors and windows. The new facility will give insurers the ability to carefully videotape what happens as powerful winds blow over structures instead of relying on wind data from universities or computer simulations. The center will also be used to test commercial buildings, agriculture structures, tractor-trailers, wind turbines, and airplanes."

5 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Tornado Strength? by Chrisq · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Tornado Strength? I think that's rather more than the Category 3 hurricane!

    1. Re:Tornado Strength? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It does seem a very odd description, more likely to have crawled out of somebody's imagination than the numbers; but my understanding is that wind speeds vary a great deal under tornado conditions, which means that it is probably accurate, albeit in a way that is either irrelevant or actively misleading.

      The actual cone of the tornado is extremely fast, quite powerful, and is where all the crazy stuff happens(large objects being lifted, spare I-beams getting shoved neatly through trees, etc.) Surrounding that is an area of air disturbance, with strength decreasing as you get further out.

    2. Re:Tornado Strength? by gartogg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This will be used to refine vulnerability functions for modeling. The buildings can't/won't be built to withstand the forces, but they can reduce the insurers uncertainty about how much damage will be caused, and therefore how much to charge for an insurance policy.

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    3. Re:Tornado Strength? by wowbagger · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "A category 1 tornado is a gentle breeze compared to an F2 tornado. I journaled about it here."

      I think you meant

      "A category 1 hurricane is a gentle breeze compared to an F2 tornado. I journaled about it here."

      And I agree. One of my co-workers in Scotland was commenting that they had a force 7 gale going there. I looked it up. 31-38 mph winds. We have a word for that in Kansas:

      Spring.

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  2. Awesome! Right? by captainpanic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I am very confused with the replies I read here (see above).
    My first thought when I heard about this was: Awesome! In big capital letters.

    I am a fan of overpowered machines that dwarf anything else... and this is just really really big, and it was built with the sole purpose to destroy things... It's a really cool toy!

    However, the average slashdotter seem to find quite a few things wrong with this... or they just make a joke about it (+1 for jokes).

    Is there something wrong with me? Am I alone?