S&T tornado simulator helps researchers investigate structure failure

Researchers at Missouri S&T are bringing tornadoes into the lab with a new simulator to model extreme cyclonic wind speeds and study how tornadoes destroy structures. The findings could be used to update existing structures and influence new construction. The S&T simulator was recently featured in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) publication Civil Engineering

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“Currently, post-storm damage surveys are the primary way to determine a tornado’s strength using the EF scale,” says Dr. Grace Yan, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Missouri S&T. “With the simulator, we can reproduce real-world tornadoes in the lab environment to discover the true failure mechanisms in civil structures.” is director of Missouri

The S&T tornado simulator has an 84-inch diameter fan that can produce a 139,000-cubic-feet-per-minute flow rate and allows researchers to scale up the wind speed to a high-intensity tornado. The massive metal dome is suspended on a track from the laboratory ceiling and can move along the track to simulate the path of an actual tornado. Yan’s team developed the computational fluid dynamics model for the facility, which is open for testing by researchers, practitioners and stakeholders from other institutions and agencies.

Yan wants to someday take the simulator’s capabilities out of the lab and into the world.

Wind Hazard Mitigation Laboratory and the Center for Hazard Mitigation and Community Resilience. She also chairs the North American Alliance for Hazards and Disaster Research Institutes (NAAHDRI) board of directors. NAAHDRI is affiliated with 100 hazard and disaster research centers across North America. Video: youtu.be/hfjc--Gs8NI