Email Print Share
September 3, 2020

NHERI Wall of Wind (WOW!)

The NHERI Wall of Wind (WOW) Experimental Facility (EF) at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami is the largest and most powerful university research facility of its kind and can simulate a Category 5 hurricane with winds over 157 mph. This level of wind speed testing (with wind-driven rain) at large scales is leading to performance-based designs that are making a significant impact on mitigating hurricane damage and influencing enhanced building codes. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has designated the Wall of Wind as one of the nation’s major “Experimental Facilities” under the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) program as a distributed, multi-user national facility that provides the natural hazards research community with access to research infrastructure. The WOW EF enables researchers to better understand wind effects on civil infrastructure systems and is playing a critical role in advancing the understanding of hurricane impacts on buildings and developing and validating innovative damage mitigation products, thereby enhancing the disaster resilience of our communities and nation. To learn more about the NHERI Wall of Wind (WOW) Experimental Facility (EF): https://fiu.designsafe-ci.org/. The virtual Eye of the Storm is a 12-part video series about hurricane science, mitigation and preparedness: https://mods.org/events/eyeofthestorm/

Credit: Extreme Events Institute and International Hurricane Research Center, https://eei.fiu.edu/


Images and other media in the National Science Foundation Multimedia Gallery are available for use in print and electronic material by NSF employees, members of the media, university staff, teachers and the general public. All media in the gallery are intended for personal, educational and nonprofit/non-commercial use only.

Videos credited to the National Science Foundation, an agency of the U.S. Government, may be distributed freely. However, some materials within the videos may be copyrighted. If you would like to use portions of NSF-produced programs in another product, please contact the Video Team in the Office of Legislative and Public Affairs at the National Science Foundation.

Additional information about general usage can be found in Conditions.