![]() ![]() By project’s end, the yield was nearly 90 research-related communications, including two monographs (on the Joplin, MO and the Moore, OK tornadoes), 14 peer-reviewed papers, 40 conference papers and three media interviews-plus one on NPR’s Science Friday program. We start by directly communicating with the public,” Prevatt said.įor the team, it was crucial to communicate the importance designing for wind hazards. Our products must make life better for communities. We are about engineering, education, and engagement. “The effort is important to the goal of structural and civil engineers. Over the course of the project, which lasted six years (2012-18), the WHDAG self-published 17 Preliminary Damage Reports following the occurrences of tornadoes, hurricanes and straightline wind events. Prevatt formed a Wind Hazard Damage Assessment Group (WHDAG) that educated and trained students on wind engineering and natural hazards. The project was initiated during a period of resurging interest in wind hazards and community resilience, and the research addressed these needs in a unique way. Over summers, the project also hosted two middle school teachers, who now incorporate wind hazards science into their curricula. Xinlai Peng, a practicing forensic engineer in Miami.Įight undergraduates participated in the research, four of whom went on to pursue graduate degrees. David Roueche, now assistant professor at Auburn University and notable wind hazards researcher, and Dr. The project supported three graduate students, including Dr. Larger national thrusts include the tornado design wind guideline that was included into the ASCE 7-16 Minimum Design Guide for Buildings.Īnother major contribution of this research project was the development of human capital: undergraduates, graduate students, and teachers. With the data collected, the team created mechanisms to predict and estimate tornado wind loads, which have contributed to the development of the first tornado wind design provisions included in the ASCE 7-16 Commentary. (Sources: Google Streetview, WFAA-TV) Changing Code, Inspiring Future Wind Engineers In parallel to these activities, the project team also developed a theoretical tornado using mathematical principles of vortex behavior which enabled the prediction of peak wind velocities throughout the footprint of a tornado path.īefore (above) and after (below) view of damage from December 2015 tornado in Rowlett, Texas. The team collected geo-located information for tornado-damaged structures in several locations including Moore Oklahoma, in 2013, and Dallas, Texas, in 2015. The second source was forensic information collected on reconnaissance missions following several tornadoes. The tornado simulator data consisted of surface pressure coefficients on buildings impacted by a tornado-like vortex that enabled the team to estimate the wind loads on exterior walls and roofs of buildings. The first was the experimental results from Iowa State University’s Tornado Simulator. ![]() Starting with very limited data on the strength of tornadoes or wind speed variations within them, the team primarily used two sources. Over the course of the project, construction professionals, communities and a cohort of student wind engineers learned about design provisions and technologies to mitigate losses. Educating the community about damage mitigation was a concomitant goal. Prevatt and his team collected data to help engineers and builders understand the interactions of tornadoes with residential structures, and the project developed approaches for predicting the magnitude of damage. This is the first step required to developing design guidelines for these structures. The primary objective of the project, Tornado-Resilient Structural Retrofits for Sustainable Housing Communities (CMMI #1150975), was to determine and quantify the tornado-induced loads on residential structures. These events were the urgent motivators for principal investigator David Prevatt, wind engineer at the University of Florida, to initiate this research. In 2011, two deadly tornadoes hit Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Joplin, Missouri, resulting in over 220 fatalities and $6 billion in economic losses. ![]() ![]() The damage to residential structures from tornadoes is a large problem that has not received adequate attention from the structural engineering community. Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida Project gathers tornado and wind damage data, develops provisions, educates communities and future engineers ![]()
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