ISU NEWRITE Facility: Phase 1
The Board of Regents will consider approval of Iowa State’s proposed project description and budget to build phase 1 of wind resiliency testing facilities during the September meeting. If approved, ISU will use more than $14 million in National Science Foundation (NSF) funding to build a scaled-down prototype of a proposed facility to study the impact of non-synoptic wind events, such as tornadoes and derechos.
Iowa State is the research team leader of the National Testing Facility for Enhancing Wind Resiliency of Infrastructure in Tornado-Downburst-Gust-front Events (NEWRITE) award from the NSF. A partnership between Iowa State, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Florida, the University of Arkansas and numerous others, NEWRITE seeks to advance the state of the art in research and testing for non-synoptic wind events. This advanced research and testing could enhance the resiliency of infrastructure and communities against tornadoes, derechos and other non-synoptic wind events.
“Being able to test structures at much larger scales, in extreme winds produced in these windstorms, will bring us closer to understanding reality and help engineers to improve the wind resilience of structures,” Partha Sarkar told ISU News Service after winning the NEWRITE grant. Sarkar, ISU Aerospace Engineering professor and director of of the Wind Simulation and Testing Laboratory, is ISU's NEWRITE project lead.
Phase one, if approved, would build a 1/15th scale model of a full-scale facility in room 1380 of Howe Hall. Additionally, phase one approval includes design and site selection for phase two – a full scale facility. ISU will seek a second NSF NEWRITE grant for phase two construction.
The NEWRITE award is a component of the NSF-funded Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure, or NHERI, a national network of experimental facilities dedicated to reducing damage from natural hazards. As a Midwest engineering hub, Iowa State is uniquely positioned to lead the NEWRITE project.
