University of Florida Terraformer on Science Nation
Published on April 7, 2017
Discussing a scale model in UF's Terraformer wind tunnel. From left: Ryan Catarelli, PhD student, Forrest Masters, Professor of Civil and Coastal Engineering, and Pedro Fernández Cabán, PhD student.
Wind engineer and 13th generation Floridian Forrest Masters knows how to ride out a hurricane. Masters and a team at the University of Florida (UF) are developing a world-class facility to help engineers and scientists better understand the high wind storms that batter communities along U.S. coastlines.
Recently, the UF team was profiled in Science Nation, the National Science Foundation (NSF) science news show. The four-minute segment is available at:
https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/index.jsp
The episode explains research underway at UF and features excellent footage of the Terraformer wind tunnel, which can dial up any type of terrain in 90 seconds, and a second high-speed simulator that can generate winds over 230 miles per hour.
The research in this episode of Science Nation is supported by NSF award #1520843, Experimental Facility with Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel, Wind Load and Dynamic Flow Simulators, and Pressure Loading Actuators.
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University of Florida Terraformer on Science Nation