Workshop: Mid-scale RI-EW Concepts for a Tornado-Downburst-Gust Testing Facility to Study Wind/Debris Impact on Civil Infrastructure; Chicago, Illinois; 20-21 October 2022

Non-synoptic windstorms, tornadoes, downbursts, and gust fronts annually cause billions of dollars of property damage and inflict numerous fatalities and injuries in the United States. Major tornadoes, with an intensity of Enhanced Fujita (EF) 3 or greater (136 mph or greater, three-second gust), have struck large population centers in the past causing multiple fatalities and significant damage to structures.

Property damage from downbursts and gust fronts are equally devastating. Damage to civil infrastructure will only increase in the future with growing urbanization and increased intensification/frequency of such windstorms because of climate change. To improve the resilience of civil infrastructure in these extreme wind events and reduce their economic and social impacts on society, an advanced research and testing facility is needed in the United States that can simulate realistic wind fields and a weather-like environment with wind speeds up to 250 mph.

This award will conduct an engineering workshop that will identify the concepts for a university-based national testing facility that will be capable of generating wind fields associated with EF1 to EF5 tornadoes (86-250 mph), intense downbursts (150-175 mph), and gust fronts with wind speeds up to 100 mph. Such a facility, with capabilities that exceed those of existing facilities, would enable investigation of the impacts of non-synoptic windstorms on civil infrastructure at mid-to-large length scales (1/10-1/2) for studying the near-ground wind field, and wind loading, debris impact, and damage mechanisms for a range of structures with small to large footprints and heights.

The two-day workshop, organized by Iowa State University, will be held in Chicago, Illinois, on October 20-21, 2022. It will bring together 25-30 participants from universities, government agencies, and industry to discuss the scientific needs and requirements and conceptual design of the mid-scale research infrastructure facility. The workshop will facilitate (a) advancement of knowledge of the transient characteristics of the non-synoptic winds and the hazards they pose that cause structural damage, (b) understanding of the mechanics of the wind-structure and debris-structure interactions in non-synoptic winds, (c) need for new experimental data and its integration with computational mechanics to improve structural modeling and damage prediction, (d) discussion of facility components and instrumentation, and (e) development of a Project Execution Plan (PEP) for the design of a new facility.

The workshop outcomes will be synthesized in a report that will be disseminated to the engineering research community via the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) Data Depot (https://www.DesignSafe-ci.org).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.