DesignSafe Radio

In our last episode featuring the 2021 SimCenter REU students, rising seniors Adithya, Claire and Will talk about applying to graduate programs — which will enable them to conduct more research. For each of them, the summer research experience with the NHERI SimCenter has encouraged them to pursue an advanced engineering degree. They discuss specific ways that undergraduates can discover research opportunities and internships, which can give them a leg up when applying to graduate schools.

Related Links:

NHERI REU Summer Program Information

Meet the REU Students

NHERI Simcenter

In our second episode featuring REU students studying this summer at the NHERI SimCenter, DesignSafe Radio host Dan Zehner asks rising seniors Adithya, Claire, and Will about ther career plans. All three discuss ways that their experience working at the SimCenter has reinforced their plans to earn a master's or PhD degree and conduct more research. They agreed that their 10-week experience combined a powerful blend of mentoring in research protocols along with the freedom to investigate genuine engineering problems on their own. The NHERI SimCenter is the network's computational modeling and simulaiton hub based at UC Berkeley. 

With encouraging words for the future undergrads applying to the REU program, the students said that prior research experience was not necessary. They were surprised that, despite their inexperience, the SimCenter team treated them like bonafide researchers and expected them to draw their own conclusions. Adithya, who is considering a PhD in engineering, said that the REU program has given him valuable proficiency as a researcher. 

Related Links:

NHERI REU Summer Program Information

Meet the REU Students

NHERI Simcenter

NHERI’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program provides 10 weeks of hands-on research experience for undergrads from across the country. In this episode, three young engineers describe their experiences working at the NHERI SimCenter, the network’s simulation hub based at UC Berkeley. The students are Adithya Salil Nair from the Ohio State University, Clair Sorensen from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and William Zakka from University of Texas Austin.

Related Links:

NHERI REU Summer Program Information

Meet the REU Students

NHERI Simcenter

In June 2021, tsunami engineer Mike Motley and his University of Washington team conducted more than 400 tsunami debris flow tests in the large wave flume at NHERI at Oregon State University. Armed with this data, Motley is taking a statistical approach to predicting and modeling debris flows on structures. Listen in!

Related Links: 

• NHERI Coastal Wave/Surge and Tsunami Experimental Facility 
• Tsunami Debris Experiments in the OSU Large Wave Flume
• Order from Chaos: A Statistical Approach to Predicting Tsunami Debris Flow

Professor Mike Motley’s research team, Dakota Mascarenas, graduate student, and undergraduate Abbey Serrone, an undergraduate, traveled from University of Washington down to Oregon State to conduct a suite of tsunami-debris experiments in the facility’s large wave flume. The pair offer advice for engineering students who want to do hands-on research. They talk about working with the NHERI at OSU team and what it is like working on a (nearly) all-female research group.

Related Links: 

• NHERI Coastal Wave/Surge and Tsunami Experimental Facility 
• Tsunami Debris Experiments in the OSU Large Wave Flume
• Order from Chaos: A Statistical Approach to Predicting Tsunami Debris Flow

Tsunami engineer Mike Motley discusses the data analysis work ahead for his team, which recently completed 410 individual tsunami-debris tests in the NHERI at Oregon State University large wave flume. They are working with thousands of time history plots: things like forces, pressures, velocities wave-heights — that all need to be associated with different debris configurations, accelerometer data (from debris pieces) as well as high-speed video data. They are looking for trends, with the goal of understanding what specific kinds of debris-loading looks like on structures. By identifying randomness with trends relating to mass, they hope to explain loading and damming patterns. Motley also discusses a coupled approach to debris-flow modeling, the next phase of the research. The plan is to join computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and material point method (MPM) models, which will enable the researchers to see how individual pieces of debris behave under specific fluid pressures.

Related Links: 

• NHERI Coastal Wave/Surge and Tsunami Experimental Facility 
• Tsunami Debris Experiments in the OSU Large Wave Flume
• Order from Chaos: A Statistical Approach to Predicting Tsunami Debris Flow

In the next set of episodes on DesignSafe Radio, we talk with tsunami engineer Mike Motley from the University of Washington. In an effort to predict debris loads on structures, he and his team are investigating tsunami debris flows from a statistical perspective. Motley calls it “embracing the chaos.” He is joined by his UW student team, Dakota Mascarenas and Abbey Serrone, and together they describe designing and conducting more than 410 individual experiments in the NHERI at OSU large wave flume.

“We want to provide an approach to tsunami and other fluid-induced debris flows that will address critical needs of the engineering modeling community.” - Mike Motley, John R. Kiely Endowed Associate Professor at the University of Washington

Related Links: 

• NHERI Coastal Wave/Surge and Tsunami Experimental Facility 
• Tsunami Debris Experiments in the OSU Large Wave Flume
• Order from Chaos: A Statistical Approach to Predicting Tsunami Debris Flow

NHERI’s University of Florida wind hazards facility is one of the world’s largest and most diverse suites of experimental infrastructure. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the UF’s boundary layer wind tunnel is located within the Powell Family Structures and Materials Laboratory. 

In June and July 2021, the DesignSafe Radio podcast features interviews with NHERI at UF facility director and principal investigator Jennifer Bridge, who details the capabilities UF wind tunnel and the research it makes possible. Please enjoy our full interview with Jennifer Bridge. 

“How are we going to design resilient infrastructure of the future? It’s going to take all of us.”

-Jennifer Bridge

Related links:

• NHERI’s University of Florida experimental facility
• Video overview of the wind tunnel facility located within the University of Florida’s Powell Family Structures and Materials Laboratory.
• Work at UF helps engineers design structures that enable Floridians to survive extreme wind events. Video interview with UF professor Forrest Masters.

Listen to the podcast on the DesignSafe Radio website, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. 

Interested in natural hazards research? Follow DesignSafe Radio on Facebook and Twitter. 

DesignSafe Radio highlights ways that NSF-supported research renders infrastructure and communities more resilient to natural hazards like earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and storm surge. The podcast is produced by NHERI, the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure, NSF award CMMI 1612144. Any statements in this material are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

NHERI’s University of Florida wind hazards facility is one of the world’s largest and most diverse suites of experimental infrastructure. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the UF’s boundary layer wind tunnel is located within the Powell Family Structures and Materials Laboratory. 

In June and July 2021, the DesignSafe Radio podcast features interviews with NHERI at UF facility director and principal investigator Jennifer Bridge, who details the capabilities UF wind tunnel and the research it makes possible. 

In this episode, Bridge discusses more research possibilities with the flow field modulator (FFM). As well as revealing effects of transient wind events on structures, it allows researchers to combine BLWT terrain-condition measurements with the FFM. So you could, for example, insert a structural model in realistic terrain and discover its performance during downbursts. Also, the FFM enables researchers to test larger models in the urban setting, called the urban canopy layer. Lastly, Bridge discusses the difference between NHERI’s two complementary wind-research laboratories. The UF facility enables fine-tuning of models, and the Wall of Wind at Florida International University enables full-scale testing. Bridge notes the importance of collaborations between facilities and funding agencies — for designing more a more resilient civil infrastructure.

“How are we going to design resilient infrastructure of the future? It’s going to take all of us.”

-Jennifer Bridge

Related links:

• NHERI’s University of Florida experimental facility
• Video overview of the wind tunnel facility located within the University of Florida’s Powell Family Structures and Materials Laboratory.
• Work at UF helps engineers design structures that enable Floridians to survive extreme wind events. Video interview with UF professor Forrest Masters.

Listen to the podcast on the DesignSafe Radio website, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. 

Interested in natural hazards research? Follow DesignSafe Radio on Facebook and Twitter. 

DesignSafe Radio highlights ways that NSF-supported research renders infrastructure and communities more resilient to natural hazards like earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and storm surge. The podcast is produced by NHERI, the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure, NSF award CMMI 1612144. Any statements in this material are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

NHERI’s University of Florida wind hazards facility is one of the world’s largest and most diverse suites of experimental infrastructure. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the UF’s boundary layer wind tunnel is located within the Powell Family Structures and Materials Laboratory. 

In June and July 2021, the DesignSafe Radio podcast features interviews with NHERI at UF facility director and principal investigator Jennifer Bridge, who details the capabilities UF wind tunnel and the research it makes possible. 

Professor Jennifer Bridge describes the flow field modulator, a new piece of equipment at the facility that greatly enhances the capabilities of the BLWT. The FFM is a bank of 319 very fast, individually controlled fans that can simulate transient events like wind gusts, downbursts, and thunderstorm winds. It can also replay wind events (called time histories) with data collected in the field, for example by the UF’s “storm chaser” team and its mobile weather towers. The facility is unique in its scale. Bridge explains how the FFM opens up wind engineering research to many new questions, with many new possibilities for discovering how different wind profiles affect structures. Click here for a view of the flow field modulator (FFM).

“What’s unique about our facility is the scale, these 319 fans, but it’s really the degrees of freedom that we have. There are just endless possibilities with what we can do, because of the number of fans, because of their flexibility and responsiveness. There’s just alot that we can do in this facility now that we weren’t able to do before.”

-Jennifer Bridge

Related links:

• NHERI’s University of Florida experimental facility
• Video overview of the wind tunnel facility located within the University of Florida’s Powell Family Structures and Materials Laboratory.
• Work at UF helps engineers design structures that enable Floridians to survive extreme wind events. Video interview with UF professor Forrest Masters.

Listen to the podcast on the DesignSafe Radio website, or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. 

Interested in natural hazards research? Follow DesignSafe Radio on Facebook and Twitter. 

DesignSafe Radio highlights ways that NSF-supported research renders infrastructure and communities more resilient to natural hazards like earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and storm surge. The podcast is produced by NHERI, the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure, NSF award CMMI 1612144. Any statements in this material are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.