The National Wind Institute (NWI) at

Texas Tech University Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public university, public research university in Lubbock, Texas, United States. Established on February 10, 1923, and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the flagship instit ...

(TTU) was established in December 2012, and is intended to serve as Texas Tech University's intellectual hub for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, commercialization and education related to

wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...

science, wind energy,

wind engineering Wind engineering is a subset of mechanical engineering, structural engineering, meteorology, and applied physics that analyzes the effects of wind in the natural and the built environment and studies the possible damage, inconvenience or benefit ...

and wind hazard mitigation and serves faculty affiliates, students, and external partners. In 2003, with support from the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

, the first interdisciplinary Ph.D. program dedicated to wind science and engineering was developed. Later, the Texas Wind Energy Institute (TWEI) was established and is a partnership between TTU and Texas State Technical College designed to develop education and career pathways to meet workforce and educational needs of the expanding wind energy industry. It is funded in part by the

Texas Workforce Commission The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) is a governmental agency in the U.S. state of Texas that provides unemployment benefits and services related to employment to eligible individuals and businesses. For employers, TWC offers recruiting, retenti ...

. In an effort to streamline and to promote synergy, both WiSE and TWEI have now integrated to form the National Wind Institute. NWI organizes and administers large multi-dimensional TTU wind-related research projects and serves as the contact point for major project sponsors and other external partners.

History

The Wind Science and Engineering (WiSE) Research Center was established in 1970 as the Institute for Disaster Research, following the F5

Lubbock tornado During the evening hours of May 11, 1970, a very powerful multiple-vortex tornado struck a large portion of the city of Lubbock, Texas, Lubbock, located in the state of Texas, United States. The incident resulted in 26 fatalities and an esti ...

that caused 26 fatalities and over $100 million in damage. Following the aftermath of the

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with the surface of Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, although the ...

, the WISE center developed the first comprehensive

report of its kind. In 2006, the

Enhanced Fujita scale The Enhanced Fujita scale (abbreviated EF-Scale) is a scale that rates tornado intensity based on the severity of the damage a tornado causes. It is used in the United States and France, among other countries. The EF scale is also unofficially ...

was developed at TTU to update the original

Fujita scale The Fujita scale (F-Scale; ), or Fujita–Pearson scale (FPP scale), is a scale for rating tornado intensity, based primarily on the damage tornadoes inflict on human-built structures and vegetation. The official Fujita scale category is determ ...

that was first introduced in 1971. In 2003, with support from the National Science Foundation, the first interdisciplinary Ph.D. program dedicated to wind science and engineering was developed. Later, the Texas Wind Energy Institute (TWEI) was established as a partnership between TTU and Texas State Technical College designed to develop education and career pathways to meet workforce and educational needs of the expanding wind energy industry. A bachelor's degree program in Wind Energy was opened in Spring 2012 and now has more than 100 students in the process of completing the degree requirements. Both WiSE and TWEI have now integrated to form the National Wind Institute (NWI).

Research Facilities

The Texas Tech campus hosts the NWI's administrative offices and the

Boundary Layer In physics and fluid mechanics, a boundary layer is the thin layer of fluid in the immediate vicinity of a Boundary (thermodynamic), bounding surface formed by the fluid flowing along the surface. The fluid's interaction with the wall induces ...

Wind Tunnel and Wind Library. Facilities at the campus consist of: * The Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel is a closed

wind tunnel A wind tunnel is "an apparatus for producing a controlled stream of air for conducting aerodynamic experiments". The experiment is conducted in the test section of the wind tunnel and a complete tunnel configuration includes air ducting to and f ...

offering a by test section that is capable of producing up winds speeds of up to . * The Debris Impact Facility * The Pulsed Jet Wind Tunnel, which is used to simulate thunderstorm

downburst In meteorology, a downburst is a strong downward and outward gushing wind system that emanates from a point source above and blows radially, that is, in straight lines in all directions from the area of impact at surface level. It originate ...

s. * The NWI's Wind Library, which hosts one of the largest collections of wind related material in the world. The collection includes Ted Fujita's papers, reports and photographs, which were donated by the Fujita family and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

. The library also includes documentation of more than 100 windstorms.

NWI research at the Reese Technology Center

The National Wind Institute occupies of indoor

laboratory A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratories are found in a variety of settings such as schools ...

space and has a large 67-acre field test site at the

Reese Technology Center Reese Technology Center is a research and business park located on the grounds of former Reese Air Force Base in western Lubbock at the unincorporated community of Reese Center. History In 1995, Reese Air Force Base was placed on the Pentagon� ...

. Some of the facilities housed at the Reese Center include: * A 200-meter data acquisition tower, used to measure and record

atmospheric An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosphere ...

conditions at ten levels, * The

Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) Facility The Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) Facility is a collaborative research facility, located at the Reese Technology Center in Lubbock, Texas, in the United States. It is the first public facility to use multiple wind turbines to measure turbine ...

* A

weather balloon A weather balloon, also known as a sounding balloon, is a balloon (specifically a type of high-altitude balloon) that carries instruments to the stratosphere to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind spe ...

facility. * VorTECH, a

vortex In fluid dynamics, a vortex (: vortices or vortexes) is a region in a fluid in which the flow revolves around an axis line, which may be straight or curved. Vortices form in stirred fluids, and may be observed in smoke rings, whirlpools in th ...

simulator. * The Wind Engineering Research Field Laboratory (WERFL) The Reese Center is also home to several

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

systems including a

SODAR Sodar, an acronym of sonic detection and ranging, is a meteorological instrument used as a wind profiler based on the Wave scattering, scattering of sound waves by atmospheric turbulence. Sodar equipment is used to measure wind speed at various ...

, Low Level Profiler, and the SMART-R Mobile Radar.

Research

Wind energy

Some of the National Wind Institute's

wind energy Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ...

research goals are the assessment of the risk and effects on

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

exposure to extreme wind events, the improvement of wind turbine design codes with emphasis on extreme wind events, and the analysis and testing of

utility In economics, utility is a measure of a certain person's satisfaction from a certain state of the world. Over time, the term has been used with at least two meanings. * In a normative context, utility refers to a goal or objective that we wish ...

-scale wind turbines for use in less-energetic wind conditions. The NWI is also focused on the identification of advanced wind-driven water treatment and

desalination Desalination is a process that removes mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination is the removal of salts and minerals from a substance. One example is Soil salinity control, soil desalination. This is important for agric ...

systems for

municipal A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the gov ...

and other applications, as well as the full-scale testing of wind-driven water desalination systems and the development of modeling codes for integrated wind-water desalination systems.

Debris impact

The NWI Debris Impact Facility performs tests on storm shelters and their various components to see if they meet established Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)l and International Code Council guidelines. Th
Debris Impact Facility
houses a high-powered air cannon that shoots wooden two-by-fours at shelter walls and doors to simulate flying debris. The cannon is capable of producing simulated wind speeds of more than 250 mph and provides valuable impact resistance data. Such data is used to develop standards for safe above-ground and below-ground shelters and continues to be in demand for testing new shelter materials and constructions.

External links

References

{{coord, 33.586691, -101.874055, display=title Texas Tech University Wind energy organizations Tornado Structural engineering Organizations based in Lubbock, Texas