INNOVATION FOR A MORE RESILIENT AMERICA
The National full-scale testing Infrastructure for Community Hardening in Extreme wind, surge, and wave events (NICHE) is a first-of-its-kind, versatile, full-scale, shareduse, national facility directing scientific research to provide solutions to foster resilient communities that are Safer, Stronger, and More Prosperous. Currently, FIU’s Wall of Wind (WOW) is the nation’s only university-based facility capable of simulating a Category 5 hurricane and testing structures at full scale. NICHE is being designed and modeled by some of the nation’s leading wind, wave, and surge scientists and engineers.
40% of U.S. population lives in coastal counties
$9.5 Trillion
Amount of goods and services produced annually by coastal counties
$100B
The amount natural disasters routinely cost the United States annually
Tractor Trailer Positioned to Illustrate Scale
PROPOSED NATIONAL FULL-SCALE TESTING INFRASTRUCTURE FOR COMMUNITY HARDENING IN EXTREME WIND, SURGE, AND WAVE EVENTS (NICHE)
560m long Wave Flume 18m wide x 16m deep
Pit where current injection will occur
UNMATCHED RESEARCH CAPABILITY
NICHE PARTNERS
Florida International University (lead)
Colorado State University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Stanford University
University of Florida
THE FUTURE
Pits will be sand-filled to investigate scour around pilings and/or geotechnical processes
Modular Exit Design (allows open-circuit mode for destructive testing)
2-story Full-Scale Building Model
18m wide x 15m high Wind Tunnel Cross Section
University of Illinois at Ubrana-Champaign University of Notre Dame
Wayne State University
Oregon State University Aerolab Inc.
FIU’s Wall of Wind (WOW) success is shaping the future of extreme weather resilience research. FIU, in conjunction with a consortium of top universities and industry, is leading the design of the National Full-Scale Testing Infrastructure for Community Hardening in Extreme Wind, Surge, and Wave Events (NICHE). The NICHE design is supported by the Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure (MsRI) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Additionally, NICHE will house a digital twin of the facility. The digital twin will enable researchers to create highresolution virtual simulations of their experiments.
NICHE is the next phase of extreme weather simulation, building on two decades of innovation at WOW. Integrated within NHERI, it will help guide extreme weather research now and into the future, enabling larger-scale testing against multiple hazards and the increasingly powerful storm conditions that define modern storms.
Explore the College of Engineering & Computing