A three-story, $30-million hexagonal wind tunnel in Canada can recreate tornadoes and capture data to serve as a basis for developing twister-resistant structural design. It is the first facility of its kind in the world, says its co-designer.
The chamber, operating since early last year, has simulated the weakest types of storms, categorized by the Enhanced Fujita scale as EF-0, EF-1 and EF-2 events. "We are now preparing to test for EF-3 and EF-4 tornadoes," says Horia Hangan, director of the Wind Engineering, Energy and Environment Research Institute at the University of Western Ontario and co-designer of the WindEEE facility.