Weather scientists are linking up giant industrial fans poweredby a monster race car engine as their latest tool to studyhurricane destruction, a reinsurer's consulting affiliate anduniversity researchers said.

The Florida International University's International HurricaneResearch Center in Miami and WeatherPredict Consulting Inc., aRaleigh, N.C.-based affiliate of Bermuda's RenaissanceRe Holdings,Ltd., made the announcement Friday.

The two groups said they will jointly develop “The RenaissanceReWall of Wind,” an array of six industrial fans that will replicateCategory 4 hurricane conditions with 130-to-140 mph winds and rainin a laboratory environment.

Referring to the model with the acronym WOW, the simulatedhurricane-type environment will allow scientists to precisely studythe impact of severe storms on physical structures and buildingmaterials and methods, the groups said.

In a statement, Craig W. Tillman, president of WeatherPredictConsulting, said: “A critical component of minimizing both loss oflife and property damage in a hurricane is to better understand theimpact of these storms on our buildings.

“While substantial resources have been devoted to analyzinghurricanes and improving weather prediction, little scientificresearch has been done on the ways in which hurricanes affect thebuilding materials that protect us,” he said.

Powered by a 502 horsepower race car engine, the RenaissanceReWall of Wind consists of six rotating propellers inside 7-footround aluminum ducts.

Wall-mounted and free-standing wind-driven rain gauges willmeasure vertical and horizontal rainfall intensities, the weathermodelers said, adding that the resulting wind-rain field willtravel 10-to-15 feet from the fans to a full-sized single-storyhouse, for example.

Instrumentation and high-speed cameras will monitor thesubject's degradation, the weather modelers said.

The testing facility is slated to be completed in late summer.It will be built on the Florida International Universitycampus.

Mr. Tillman said the scientific data collected from theexperiments will help storm-exposed areas like Florida identifysuperior construction designs and materials, “thus mitigatinginsured losses and building more resilient communities.”

Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman, director of the InternationalHurricane Research Center, reported that some promising initialresearch has already been conducted based on a two-fan array thatwas funded by the Florida Division of Emergency Management withsupport from RenaissanceRe and WeatherPredict.

The International Hurricane Research Center is aninterdisciplinary research center focused on the mitigation ofhurricane damage to people, the economy and the environment. It wasestablished by the state legislature in 1995.

WeatherPredict, an affiliate of RenaissanceRe Holdings, providesweather forecasts to companies in the energy, financial andagribusiness sectors.