Hurricane Simulator to Destroy Full Size Building 162
Anonymous Coward writes "This is a shameless plug, but I thought Slashdot readers might be interested in the hurricane simulator system the company I work for (Cambridge Consultants) helped develop for the University of Western Ontario. The BBC article is light on the kind of technical details Slashdot readers enjoy, so here are some titbits. The servomotors for the 100+ valves are controlled over an IPv4, gigabit Ethernet network connected to an Athlon dual-core AMD64 PC. The entire real-time control system runs on this machine, utilizing well above 90% of each processor core, and roughly 30% of the network capacity. The sampling frequency of the control system places a huge demand on the machine, with about 70,000 context switches taking place every second. Yes, it runs Linux. "
Yes, But... (Score:5, Funny)
Dammit, you stole my line!
Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes, but... (Score:2)
Re:Yes, but... (Score:1)
Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these? (Score:1)
Re:Yes, but... (Score:1)
Re:Yes, but... (Score:1)
Yeah... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yeah... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yeah... (Score:1)
For most problems, it can be very difficult to find a way to write the program so that it efficiently utilizes many processors at once. Typically, a poorly-written MPI (or PVM, or whatever distributed computing model you use) program will leave many CPUs idling much of the time. For some problems the division of labor is fairly straightforward, but for most it's not.
Now, this comment implies that the code is wel
Listen (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Listen (Score:2)
Re:Listen (Score:5, Funny)
Those CPU stats in full... (Score:5, Funny)
89.95% kernel (switching threads)
0.05% user (generating 70,000 "blow" commands per second)
Hurricanes may blow, but abusing thread-level concurrancy definitely sucks.
Re:Those CPU stats in full... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Those CPU stats in full... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Those CPU stats in full... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Those CPU stats in full... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Those CPU stats in full... (Score:2)
Re:Those CPU stats in full... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Those CPU stats in full... (Score:1)
Re:Those CPU stats in full... (Score:2)
Re:Yeah right... (Score:1)
Re:Yeah right... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, spelt.
It's both tasty, and correct. (I eat a lot of stuff mad
Linux doomsday device (Score:5, Insightful)
Doubts... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you randomly throw in pieces of tin roof and stop signs to simulate that? And trees? I doubt it, since there isn't enough space in your simulator for that.
As for being "perfectly repeatable", I have doubts for that as well. That assumes that you could build the exact same house over and over. The article even states that the placement of the nails in the house matters, and I can't see anyone being that perfect.
Overall, I think it's a neat project, but unlikely to really provide more insight than 'yeah, wind fscks shit up.'
Re:Doubts... (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA:"This is relevant because most of the damage to houses occurs in places where there are sudden changes in pressure, such as at the corners and edges of the building.
"You get swirling and rapid changes from positive to negative pressure," said Mr Wilkinson.
"If you were going to pull a panel off a roof you wouldn't just heave on it, you'd try to waggle it, and that's the most destructive thing for the wind to do.""
Re:Doubts... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Doubts... (Score:2, Interesting)
The point is, they're NOT going to be able to do a goddamn thing about flying debris (well, they could build all houses out of 10" of tempered steel), what they are trying to do is make houses designed to be as hurricane resistant as possible.
A cement brick house (standard in Florida) is able to stop any debris hurled at it by a hurricane. The standard test is usually a 2x4 at 120mph or somesuch. One weak spot is the connection between the roof and the wall. If these are not properly secured, the roof will
Re:Doubts... (Score:2)
Re:Doubts... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doubts... (Score:1)
I don't know what government you speak of, but Citizen's Insurance (the FL owned provider) has to charge (by law) above the highest rate for a given property. It is about 20-50 percent higher than a private provider.
The private providers *must* provide coverage for homes if they want to sell any other insurance in the state. But the way the
Re:Doubts... (Score:2)
In south Florida that'd be slums. In the Keys you probably can't even get an empty lot for that. My inlaws have some property there (bought about fifty years ago) and I'm sure they could get easily double, maybe triple, that from someone who just wants to scrape the existing structure off and rebuild. (Hey, it'd be worth more after a hurricane destroyed the property -- which it won't, because it's a concrete and steel structure.)
Just wa
You make a good point (Score:3, Informative)
Yes but scientists have all ready been firing 2X4s directly into different structures in order to test this. Its a lot easier than trying to directly test the effects of wind.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: You make a good point (Score:1)
"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." -Yogi Berra
Re: You make a good point (Score:2)
Theory is always a gross oversimplification.
Assumptions are made, not because they are valid, but because without them computation is impossible and they seem not to cause too much error in at least some of the cases of interest.
Re:Doubts... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Doubts... (Score:2)
I saw a Science Channel show that showed that the biggest weakness of any structure is the windows. The biggest improvement can be had by just using a plastic film over both sides so they can hold the wind out once it's been hit by a large object. Once it lets wind in, the wind tends to gut a building.
Re:Doubts... (Score:2)
Re:Doubts... (Score:2)
Which is why folks in frequent hurricane country (eg, Florida Keys) just put thick plywood shutters over the windows. Quite likely the ones already made to fit the windows and attach to the fittings for them. When you get two or three hurricanes coming through in a season, you start getting serious about planning for them.
Re:Doubts... (Score:1)
Re:Doubts... (Score:2)
Re:Doubts... (and how they were addressed) (Score:5, Informative)
This project isn't meant to make a perfectly hurricane resistant house (though, you could try based on the results). As far as I know, the aim is to find what little things can be done to the average house to improve the chances of survival for the house, or at least the people in it. In the example of nailing trusses to the walls of the house, anyone who's actually been there to see or nailed a truss can attest to how weak that connection can be, and one possible change is to mandate exactly how the trusses need to be nailed, and perhaps develop a new nailing plate to ensure that the placement of the nail is exact each time (if there is a steel plate on each truss with only one hole, you know where the nail is going).
Also, for anyone wondering "why Western Ontario?", UWO is home to a very well respected wintunnel lab, which has tested many very well known buildings (Athens Olympic Stadium, CN Tower, numerous tall buildings in China to name a few). You can take a look here: http://www.blwtl.uwo.ca/Public/Home.aspx [blwtl.uwo.ca]
Not to mention construction defects (Score:2)
Flying debris aside (which punches huge holes in houses and allows wind to get inside), many homes destroyed by Andrew were found to have substandard construction, some with the ro
What about the hurricane? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about the hurricane? (Score:1)
This doesn't seem like the right case to mention burning their house down if they don't video tape it for us.
Re:What about the hurricane? (Score:3, Insightful)
I feel a great disturbance in the force... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I feel a great disturbance in the force... (Score:1, Redundant)
Take it to Texas (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Take it to Texas (Score:2)
"...electric chair? Shoot. You remember Earl three cells over? They blew 'im to death."
I for one .... (Score:3, Funny)
Your overlords? (Score:2)
You mean Canadians?
Hurricane simulaiton in Canada (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hurricane simulaiton in Canada (Score:1)
Re:Hurricane simulaiton in Canada (Score:2, Funny)
all i want to know is... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:all i want to know is... (Score:1)
Real-time? (Score:1, Interesting)
This seems not good (Score:5, Interesting)
What they found that the building code was pretty good. There were a couple of issues.
The rain of an actual hurricane was responsible for a lot of the destroyed homes. Rain would get up under the shingles and soak the fiberboard sheathing. The sheathing would swell and the roofing staples would then cut into the sheathing and the sheathing would blow off. Once that happened, the house was toast.
Another issue was that builders didn't always build to code. They found a lot of nails that missed the lumber they were aimed at.
This experiment misses a couple of things that caused most of the destruction during Hurricane Andrew.
If you state what winds you want a house to withstand, you can reliably build the house to withstand those winds. I am skeptical that this experiment will turn up anything we didn't already know.
Re:This seems not good (Score:3, Insightful)
From the BYLINE of TFA: "A family home in Canada will be deliberately destroyed by scientists to understand how buildings react to hurricane force winds." Not the rain, not the building code, THE WINDS. That's how a controlled experiment works.
I am skeptical that this experiment will turn up anything we didn't already know.
I'm sure the researchers didn't do any literature review. At least not a
Re:This seems not good (Score:2)
Re:This seems not good (Score:2)
If this thing is simulating anything, it's a tornado.
I'm also concerned about the fact that the house looks like it takes up just about the whole entire building. Air currents can do some funky things when given enough room and enough objects to bounce off of. Likewise, as another poster pointed out, the simulator doesn't consider the fact that there wi
Re:This seems not good (Score:1)
From TFA: "It's not the wind speed we're simulating; it's the actual force the wind exerts on the building."
That's exactly what they're trying to do. Nowhere did anyone say "So, we're gonna point a big fan at a house in a tiny hangar and..."
Re:IAAE (Score:2)
If I could mod up what you just said, I would. It was informed, informative, and appropriate.
I appologize if my previous comment was too abrasive. You just hit a nerve for me. I make a living doing research and experimental work; I know how much work goes into it and I know how it takes lots of "baby steps" to acheive the kind of results that people seem to expect from every single experiment. Mostly my beef is with the media's role in this process. Honest work tends to get publicize
Storm Surge (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Storm Surge (Score:1)
Of course we get blizzards but that's something else entirely.
Don't look at it as Canadians getting to big for their britches look at it as someone steping into the hole that should contain GW.
We'll step in feet first though.
Re:Storm Surge (Score:2)
That's how a controlled experiment works. If they wanted to study flood damage they would have done something completely different. Don't use criticism of someone's hard work as a launching point to tell anecdotes. If this gives a
Winds vs. Water (Score:4, Insightful)
Well the winds could potentially destroy the home, but the mold and rot that comes from the standing water could render it worthless.
In a related News: CompTIA (Score:5, Funny)
This proves that Linux can be used by Terorists, drug dealers that want to push competitors out and various other nefarious evildoer.
A member of CompTIA Steve B. indicated that Linux can even get chairs to fly around.
Obligatory... (Score:1)
To paraphrase Dave Barry, "Everything should go well, provided the researchers remember to change the settings from 'Biblical Flood' to 'Hurricane'."
Re:Obligatory... (Score:1)
NEWS FLASH from the MS FUD Dept. ! (Score:5, Funny)
This would be much more interesting.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not needed... (Score:1)
House has stood up so far, but I'm living life on the edge, ya know?
Woah (Score:1, Offtopic)
Thank you! (Score:2)
It's not every day that a house can be constructed just for the purpose of testing it with such strong winds.
I live in Nebraska, and I'm sure that some of the findings from projects like yours will find their way into our homes to protect them from tornadoes.
Re:Thank you! (Score:2)
Sorry in advance! (Score:1, Redundant)
So, what you are saying ... (Score:1, Funny)
robot (Score:1)
anyone here know how to make a time stopping machine that does some sparkles in the process or at least some bubbles that rolls in the ground?
Simulations not needed. Yet. (Score:5, Informative)
I live in a FEMA trailer. The western eyewall of Hurricane Katrina passed over my house. Various official guesstimates of wind velocity at the time were high Category 3 to low Category 4 - roughly 130mph or 210 kph. In my neighborhood, houses suffered everything from light roof damage from wind and felled trees, to complete destruction; nothing left but a pile of 2x4's. A few houses were swept away entirely, along with cars, boats and anything else that was not tied down.
My house is an ordinary 25 year old, rectangular, brick clad, single storey building with a simple hip roof and traditional construction. There are no hurricane straps anywhere in the house. The house structure survived just fine. Not a single window was broken, though most had water infiltrate between the panes. Roof damage was minor, it never sprung a leak, but it has been re-shingled since the storm. What put me into a trailer was the storm surge of 15 feet, over four feet of water in the house for several hours. The interior is still entirely gutted.
Between damage to the wiring, flooring, drywall, insulation, kitchen and bathroom cabinets, appliances, HVAC unit, furniture and all the rest of the contents of the house and garage, I'd just as soon build a brand new house from scratch. There would be a lot fewer headaches, and not much more expense.
So what's my point? It's simple. If you'll spend a few month in this area, you'll learn more about hurricane hazards than decades of laboratory simulations. There are too many parameters to get right before simulation results will yield much knowledge.
IANAE, but from my observation of damage from New Orleans to the Mississippi Gulf Coast there are several points to be made.
1) Straight line winds are just one hazard. The level of damage varies with wind direction, velocity and duration, amount of rainfall, height and velocity of storm surge, duration of inundation, distance from open water, barriers both natural and man-made, proximity and height of neighboring structures, and tornadoes (there were lots of those embedded in the storm). And maybe other factors too, including luck.
2) No doubt, building codes play a role in preventing or mitigating wind damage.
3) Those fancy, intricate gabled roofs that are so popular on all the new McMansions? They suck. I don't care how many metal brackets hold them together. They're mincemeat in a real storm.
4) You can't do much against flood. High Base Food elevation is the only thing that will prevent flooding. Build high to remain dry.
5) Most of the stuff you own is located below a line four feet above the floor. The cost of a house's structure is relatively small compared to its contents, equipment, and interior finish.
6) If you're in the storm's bull's eye, like Pearlington, Waveland and Bay St. Louis MS were, there's not much to be gained by expensive reinforcement of an ordinary house structure. You just can't fully protect against the massive energy that a Katrina-sized storm carries onshore.
7) Don't trust the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to protect you against anything.
8) Don't trust your insurance company.
9) When a hurricane's bearing down on you, don't worry about the house, get the hell out of town.
Re:Simulations not needed. Yet. (Score:1, Interesting)
And on top of that, you can have the winds shift 180 degrees over the course of an hour without ever letting up. I didn't see anything in the article that suggested the simulator did or didn't account for that, but it's something that definitely happens.
I agree that while this sounds like an interesting experiment, it's very unlikely that we're going to learn anything that structural engineers don
Re:Simulations not needed. Yet. (Score:2)
The absolute cheapest thing that can be done is improve the infrastructure around the city to allow rapid
evacuation in an emergency. (cheapest doesn't mean cheap though...)
In any event, every municipality should have some estimate of how long it will realistically take to evacuate and what resources are needed to do so. (for example, don't let the bus drivers leave town first, with an entire motor pool of school busses just sitting there because it's beneath your citizens to t
Re:Simulations not needed. Yet. (Score:2)
The experiments can provide a lot of things that cannot be seen in the hurricane-damaged houses. They can monitor in real-time how the buildings get damaged. They can isolate wind damage from rain, debris, and flood damage. Most importantly, they can quickly test several different construction methods to see how well they fare against the winds. Does a nail at a 10 degree angle hold together against 50% more wind than a nail straight in? These ar
But does it... (Score:1)
CCL + BRE - 20 years = Big Bad Wolf Project (Score:1, Interesting)
So, is this an up-scaling of that project?
Why simulate? (Score:1)
Amazed (Score:1)
input (Score:2, Insightful)
Look at the photo from the article:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41805000/jpg
Every hurricane or every news report about tornado alley showing the damaged homes looks like this. This looks like a pile of toothpicks! You really spend thousands of dollars to build and live in these wooden things?
I'm from the Bahamas. Although I'm the least patriotic person I know, I
Re:input (Score:1)
Re:input (Score:2)
For one, hurricane/tornado damage is self-selecting. i.e. well-built homes aren't damaged, and don't get shown on TV because who wants to see a bunch of wet houses? Same thing with tornados and trailer parks. That kind of construction takes damage incredibly easily, so it always seems like that's where tornados strike. Nope. It's just where the most damage is donw, so it's what gets on TV.
Secondly, those "toothpick" houses.
Re:input (Score:2)
I'll believe it when I see it. Maybe you might get "garbage truck repelling" construction on a new home that is custom designed and built, but I can guarantee that you won't get the same in your standard suburb tract-housing.
I can't speak for California construction, but I know that here in Phoenix, if you are lucky
Re:input (Score:2)
I am not an expert on pouring a foundation (so google up on it for real-world instructions), but I would imagine that for a house your foundation
News from the future ... (Score:2)
The BBC is reporting that the much vaunted Hurricane Simulator experiment in Ontario has surpassed expectations by not only destroying the test subject but also the building it was housed in. While some blame the catastrophe on the Big Bad Wolf, more reasoning minds have posited that "maybe they should have used more nails to hold it down".
Hurrican Simlator--Not Wet Enough (Score:2, Informative)
Imagine a beowulf cluster of... (Score:2)
But seriously, in Soviet Russia, simulator blows you!