[Announce-test] TEST: Wall of Wind Pankow Award

[announce-test at designsafe-ci.org]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MARCH 6, 2018Wall of Wind Receives 2018 Charles
Pankow Award for Innovation

RESTON, Va. – The National Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure
(NHERI) Wall of Wind (WOW) Experimental Facility
<https://cee.fiu.edu/research/facilities/wall-of-wind/> (EF) located at
Florida International University (FIU), was awarded the 2018 Charles Pankow
Award for Innovation by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The
NHERI WOW EF innovation will be recognized during ASCE’s annual Outstanding
Projects and Leaders (OPAL) Gala
<https://www.asce.org/event/2018/opal-awards-gala/> on March 15, 2018.

The award recognizes outstanding organizations that have collaborated to
practice innovative design, materials, or construction-related research and
development.

The NHERI WOW EF uses a 12-fan system to provide experimental capabilities
including generating wind speeds up to 157 miles per hour, or Category 5
Hurricane wind. This simulation allows civil engineers to understand the
effects of extreme wind and rain on civil infrastructure systems, explore
mitigation and resiliency techniques and promote sustainable design
practices. By testing sustainable and resilient engineering systems with
the NHERI WOW EF, civil engineers can work to mitigate hurricane impacts
and prevent wind hazards from becoming community disasters.

“As we face more extreme weather events, our work at the Wall of Wind
becomes ever more crucial for wind hazard and hurricane risk reduction,”
said Richard S. Olson, director of FIU’s Extreme Events Institute and
International Hurricane Research Center (IHRC). WOW is a collaboration
between the IHRC and wind engineers in the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering at FIU’s College of Engineering & Computing.
“This award recognizes the Wall of Wind's pioneering research, where the
faculty are committed to improving building standards and practices and
achieving safer and more hurricane-resistant communities.”

The NHERI WOW EF was created by a team of 9 members led by Principal
Investigator Arindam Chowdhury. Chowdhury leads the scientific and
operational vision of this innovative facility while facilitating
educational and outreach activities.

<https://fiu.designsafe-ci.org/>

The NHERI Wall of Wind EF team, from left: Raphael Greenbaum, Ashkan
Rasouli, Amal Elawady, Walter Conklin, Roy Liu, Peter Irwin, Arindam Gan
Chowdhury, Ioannis Zisis, Maryam Refan.

According to Chowdhury, “The scientific vision of the NHERI WOW EF is to
enable frontier research and education to impart resiliency and
sustainability to new and existing building and cladding systems, and to
lifeline infrastructure. Holistic testing of large models and integrated
component assemblies is helping NSF-supported external users to gain new
knowledge on wind and rain damage, cascading failures, and
structural/functional fragilities, with and without retrofitting strategies.

“Moreover, the WOW’s unique capabilities in terms of high Reynolds number
experimentation is initiating a new chapter in multi-, cross-, and
trans-disciplinary research that requires study of complex flows and their
effects on structures. This helps the WOW to cross the traditional borders
of wind engineering research and create an additional niche in fundamental
fluid mechanics research.”

Recent projects that have utilized the NHERI WOW EF include Experimentally
Validated Stochastic Numerical Framework to Generate Multi-Dimensional
Fragilities for Hurricane Resilience Enhancement of Transmission Systems,
led by Principal Investigator Abdollah Shafieezadeh of Ohio State
University, and Uncovering Potential Risks of Wind-Induced Cascading
Damages to Construction Projects and Neighboring Communities, led by
Principal Investigator Youngjib Ham of Texas A&M University.


*Media Contacts:*

Millie Acebal
mroussea at fiu.edu

Emily Castellanos
(202) 789-7846
ecastellanos at asce.org
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