Contact: Bob Ratliff
With seasonal hurricanes lashing areas from Texas to New England, Mark Twain's observation about the weather-everyone talks, but no one does anything about it-gets repeated a lot this time of year.
As cleanups continue in the wake of Earl, Bonnie and Frances-and as their successors form-a team of state scientists and engineers is contributing to a national effort to find ways of blunting the destructive force of hurricanes, tropical storms and other violent weather events.
Some of their best minds at Mississippi State, Jackson State and the universities of Mississippi and Southern Mississippi are studying and testing ways to reduce the destruction to homes and other structures caused by natural disasters. Headed by MSU's Diagnostic Instrumentation and Analysis Laboratory, the four-university coalition is an arm of the Partnership for Natural Disaster Reduction.
Robert Altenkirch, MSU's vice president for research, is vice chair of the national group, while DIAL director John Plodinec is coordinator of the Mississippi coalition.
The partnership is led by Tom David of the International Hurricane Center at Florida International University in Miami. The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, a U.S. Energy Department research facility, provides overall support for the effort.
"The partnership's main objective is to develop new ways to build homes and other structures to withstand high speed winds like those generated by hurricanes and tornadoes," Plodinec said. "We also are working to identify quick and inexpensive ways to make existing homes more disaster-proof."
Plodinec said the coalition currently is seeking funding from Congress for construction of a windstorm simulation test facility at the Idaho lab. The facility-the first of its kind in the world-will have the capability to test structures in wind gusts up to 200 miles per hour.
Collected data will be used to develop technologies that improve the safety and durability-along with the energy efficiency and affordability-of homes and other structures.
"Through this effort, we will be able to apply existing technologies to reduce significantly the destruction of homes, uprooting of families and other tragedies caused by storms such as we have seen in recent days," Plodinec said.
Mississippi State's contribution includes expertise found in the College of Engineering and its National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center and Raspet Flight Laboratory, as well as the campus-based T.K. Martin Center for Technology and Disability.
The capability of MSU's Forest Products Lab to model and predict the behavior of wood and wood products is being used in developing plans for storm-resistant structures. The Mississippi State Extension Service will handle distribution of information produced by the coalition.
Jackson State will provide expertise in computation weather forecasting found in its department of physics, atmospheric sciences and general science, while faculty members in USM's School of Engineering Technology are to assist with building systems and construction techniques.
U.M. researchers will provide evaluations of the effects of earthquakes and other natural disasters using its capabilities in finite element modeling.
Among several projects already under way are the evaluations of wind loads on the roofs of metal buildings and the use of embedded fiber optic sensors to measure strains induced by high winds on concrete structures. Corning Inc., a New York-based manufacturer of optical fiber and other high-tech products, is assisting with the fiber optic research.