Researchers said by summer's end they plan to start extensive tests on a gigantic new facility that will try to blow apart houses to gauge the effects of hurricane winds.

By mid-June, contractors building the disaster research center in Richburg, S.C., plan to begin testing the power system for a wall of 105 fans, each nearly six feet tall, using enough juice to power 9,000 homes, said Tim Reinhold.

Reinhold is the chief engineer and senior vice president for research who is putting the project together for the Tampa, Fla.-based Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS).

The immense wind chamber -- a half-acre in size and as tall as a six-story building -- in addition to subjecting buildings to Category 4 hurricane winds, will also douse them with storm-like raindrops, he said.

Reinhold also revealed that planners will be simulating ember attacks from firestorms and are looking into ways to give the lab the capacity to simulate hailstorms.

In addition to a link with a 100,000-volt power line, the lab will have a 150,000-gallon water tower so testers can spray 5,000 gallons on a building in the course of 15 minutes from possibly as many as 200 nozzles.

Instead of using round Petri dishes, this lab will use a 2,375-square-foot turntable capable of holding, one- and two-story homes and other structures.

Tests will mix water with wind because "water intrusion is going to be a major focus of the work we do," said Reinhold, explaining that researchers have found structures that may stand up to a storm have their interiors so damaged by rainwater they must be gutted.

"We want to look at what goes first and what goes second, how do buildings start peeling apart," he said.

Beginning in 2008 with Hurricane Ike, there have been studies done on raindrop size, and know-how on adjusting water sprays has been developed by agricultural experts, he related.

Since the lab gained power last week, contractors will be wiring up the fans and making sure they all rotate in the right direction. When the facility begins operations in October and they all crank up together, the noise will hit 140 decibels, whish is "up in the pain threshold area," Reinhold remarked.

An earthen berm shields neighbors from sound, and building safety arrangements for ear protection include a feature to power down the fans if someone opens a door from the control room or bunker-like observation area.

The system will also shut down if anyone wanders into the laboratory, and the design takes into account the possibility that pieces of buildings will fly off. A back wall where most such impact is expected is nine-inch-thick reinforced concrete, and sidewalls are hardened as well.

To create embers for firestorm testing, Reinhold said a five-foot-deep, six-foot-wide trench with gas burners will be filled with mulch with a fan blowing over it. "We'll be working with the fire department when we do one of those tests," he noted.

The holder of a doctorate in engineering mechanics, Reinhold said he began playing with the notion of a windstorm lab in 1993 and secured some funds to demonstrate windflow effects on models.

His big problem was price. One plan to use Russian bomber jet turboprop engines would have cost $200 million. The IBHS installation using electric motors will cost about $40 million employing off-the-shelf fans typically used for mining ventilation, Reinhold said.

According to information from Allison Love, a spokesperson for IBHS, the organization believes research by the industry-financed facility will influence residential and commercial structural design and construction "for decades" and provide savings on natural disaster-related losses annually cost billions of dollars.

Initial research at the IBHS campus will focus on improved roofing performance, identifying effective methods to provide backup water-intrusion protection, examining short- and long-term aging effects, and developing cost-effective methods to retrofit systems to reduce damage.

Roof covers, it was noted, are replaced more frequently than any other building component, so chang-es in roofing products and installation requirements can produce significant paybacks within a short period of time.

Testing at the research center will also provide insurance and construction industry stakeholders with data on "green" building components and techniques with a focus on the durability and resiliency of sustainable building technology.

Findings from the lab will also provide "an objective, scientific foundation for development of sound public policy, such as enhanced building codes," IBHS said.

Web camera views of the IBHS Research Center are online at (http://oxblue.com/pro/open/ibhs/catastrophelab), and more information about the project at www.disastersafety.org.

Special Reports /

IBHS Plans to Blow the Roof Off (Literally)

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