Giant Machines Help South Florida Dissect Hurricanes
By Ken Kaye, Sun Sentinel | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Both the University of
The idea is to provide scientists with a better understanding of how the storms work, information that should help improve forecasts and bolster construction.
Additionally, the
Tank helps create a Cat 5 storm
It's not easy to witness the destructive power of a Category 5 hurricane up close and personal.
Yet that's what UM scientists can now do inside a tank the size of an indoor swimming pool, housed in the school's new
The tank holds 38,000 gallons of water which a special machine churns to create large battering waves. A separate 1,700-horsepower turbine engine with propeller fans attached are used to mimic the devastating effects of 200 mph winds.
Then the winds and waves are teamed up and the result is a human-made storm even more frenzied than Hurricane Andrew, only it's contained inside see-through walls.
That makes it the only test laboratory in the world where hurricane conditions are so authentically recreated, said
"It's the combination of the two, the wind and waves, superimposed on the water, that makes this so remarkable," he said.
The special tank, housed inside a gray-concrete setting, will help answer multiple questions about the structure of hurricanes and the physics of how they draw heat energy from the ocean, Avissar said.
Ultimately, the goal is to improve hurricane forecasting and intensity predictions.
"It allows us to understand way better what's happening at the interface of where the ocean and the storm meet," Avissar said. "A lot of it has to do with the transfer of energy from the ocean into the storm."
Another major goal will be to see how hurricanes can ravage coastal homes and buildings, in hopes of finding ways to strengthen construction and improve building codes, he said.
To do so, one end of the tank has a curved, raised-up stainless steel "beach," where models of homes and office buildings will be placed for experiments.
The
NOAA is expected to be one of the biggest experimenters since it already spends millions to better understand the structure of storms through satellites and sophisticated radar systems on hurricane hunter aircraft.
FIU's Wall of Wind blows away structures
Its primary focus is to study how various categories of hurricanes impact various structures. And its 8,000 horsepower electrical engine requires so much energy it has a direct line to
"We've worked a lot on roofs and how to construct them better. Also on how to make soffits, the area under a roof's overhang, more waterproof," said
In addition to powerful gusts, the wall includes a mechanism to douse structures with several inches of simulated rainfall per hour to recreate hurricane conditions as accurately as possible, said Leatherman, now an earth and environment professor.
"The rain really adds to the damage," he said.
Leatherman said the wall of wind originally started with two fans powered by big noisy Chevy engines. Now housed in a hangar at FIU's engineering center, the wall is so state-of- the-art that the insurance industry built a similar facility near
"I'm very happy that now there are two walls of wind in the world," he said. "We need both of them."
P-3 Hurricane Hunter cockpit
While it doesn't exactly simulate hurricane conditions, the
"The really cool part about it is that you can sit in it and pretend to be the pilot," said
The plane, donated by
But at the back of the plane is a video showing interviews with the crews of the P-3. Also, the hurricane exhibit also provides other videos, showing what it's like to fly into a storm.
"The cockpit is mainly instructional for children and adults," said Colbert, an expert in meteorology and oceanography. "All the wheels and knobs move. Plus, the cockpit seats are really fun because they turn 360 degrees."
The ultimate goal of the hurricane exhibit is to show patrons how to predict, prepare for and protect against hurricanes, Colbert said. The entrance fee for the museum, at
Colbert said the P-3 cockpit is the centerpiece of the exhibit.
"It's the biggest object there and definitely catches your eye," she said.
[email protected] or 561-243-6530.
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