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FIU’s Wall of Wind demonstrates hurricane testing, aims to expand to 200 mph and surge simulation
Summary
Florida International University highlighted the Wall of Wind facility, its partnerships, workforce impacts and plans to expand wind-testing capacity and add surge and flood simulation during a Senate Education Postsecondary hearing.
Florida International University’s Center of Excellence for Hurricane Damage Mitigation and Product Development described the Wall of Wind testing array, research partnerships and plans to expand capabilities at a Senate Education Postsecondary hearing.
“...our 12 fan system can generate up to a 160 miles an hour with water intrusion,” Dr. Richard Olsen told senators, adding the facility’s 12 fans—arranged six over six—use a contraction zone and friction zone to reproduce hurricane-force wind and water intrusion for research testing.
Olsen said the facility traces back to a 2005 two-fan proof of concept and grew with private-sector support to its current 12-fan array. He described the fans as six-foot-diameter units that each weigh about 15,000 pounds and said testing ranges from lower-speed research to high-intensity runs that can reach category-5 conditions.
The Wall of Wind partners with industry, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the National Science Foundation’s natural hazard engineering research infrastructure (NHERI) program and the National Institute of Standards and Technology through an Industry–University Cooperative Research Center, Olsen said. He told the committee the state’s original $7,500,000 investment has yielded external funding and national-profile awards; the facility is included in NSF’s NHERI infrastructure.
Olsen said the center has tested building materials, traffic signals and solar panels and contributed to improvements in codes and loss-modeling. He highlighted the Florida public hurricane loss model created with the state Office of Insurance Regulation as providing the state an independent way to assess potential losses and insurance rate requests.
Looking ahead, Olsen said the Wall of Wind is pursuing a north-side expansion to reach 200 miles per hour to study tornadic gusts embedded in hurricanes and plans to add a flume to simulate storm surge, wave action and flood to produce integrated multi-hazard experiments.
The presentation emphasized workforce development, academic collaborations and patent-driven innovations intended to reduce hurricane damage; the committee received the presentation as informational.
