The Wind Engineering, Energy and Environment Research Facility (WindEEE RF) is a specialized suite of infrastructure comprised of :
With an extensive user’s base averaging 300 per year across Canada and 150 internationally, the distributed facility helps users carry out unique experimentation in all research areas of wind engineering, energy and environment.
Enable climate-resilient and sustainable communities through innovation in wind engineering.
Make global contributions in building resilience and sustainable communities through multi-disciplinary research, innovation and education of highly qualified personnel.
We value equity of access and opportunity, taking action to identify and address barriers to the full participation of all potential users. We value and respect the diversity of our community, recognizing the important contributions that diverse perspectives and lived experiences bring to our research environment.We value active engagement with and across diverse user groups, fostering a welcoming community where everyone feels respected, valued and included.
Leveraging the unique research capabilities enabled through our wide range of facilities, WindEEE has identified the following six priority research areas:
I. Severe storm hazards: Advance innovative severe weather hazard research on synoptic (large-scale weather systems such as hurricanes) and non-synoptic (local thunderstorms such as tornado and downburst) storm systems. Study their impacts on the performance of the built and natural environments at WindEEE’s controlled, scalable, and repeatable laboratory environment.
II. Computational modeling: Support innovative research on computational wind and climate engineering to address multi-physics, multi-scale climate related limitations in physical testing. Work towards realization of digital twins (such as digital wind tunnel, – buildings and – civil infrastructure) to enable optimal design/retrofit/operations, outreach, and decision-making processes.
III. Wind damage mitigation and passive architectural design: Develop innovative aerodynamic design and retrofit methods and wind mitigation technology to limit the damage caused by severe weather and contribute to green passive building technology and renewable energy (solar and wind) to limit the carbon footprint of the built environment.
IV. Performance-based design: Enable comprehensive performance-based wind design consistent with design for other stressors such as fire, earthquake, and blast.
V. Climate change impact assessment: Enable climate change impact assessments on wind and climate testing methods, and design and retrofit approaches used by industry and government.
VI. Training the next generation: Train a diverse group of future wind and climate engineers to advance the energy performance and resilience of buildings and civil infrastructures and mitigating the effects of climate on the built environment. Engage with the K-12 community to encourage underrepresented groups to enter these fields.
One of the many practical applications of WindEEE is that it can help us understand more about vulnerability to turbulence from the level of a community to the level of individual buildings and structures, including high-rise towers, so that we can develop better design codes. This is especially important given the number of buildings being constructed right across the world, especially in coastal areas and/or growing mega-cities.
A key challenge is that traditional wind tunnels widely used today for science and testing applications from planes to cars, buildings and air quality applications create uni-directional, and constant speed air flows. They simply cannot reproduce the complex space and time variation of localised wind storms that we are seeing increasing today. Moreover, due to their size and geometry, traditional wind tunnels are also not capable of reproducing all scales of wind motions involved in wind energy and wind environment studies.
Some other features include sheared flows, varying wind speeds from left to right or top to bottom, and any configuration in between. It can also do gusting flows. [It is] the world’s first 3D wind chamber.
The hexagonal lab can reproduce tornadoes up to an Enhanced Fujita 4, the second-highest tornado classification. This is the first year the lab started fully operational testing, and Hangan already is getting results.
The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) is an independent corporation created by the Government of Canada to fund research infrastructure. The CFI’s mandate is to strengthen the capacity of Canadian universities, colleges, research hospitals, and non-profit research institutions to carry out world-class research and technology development that benefits Canadians. Since its creation in 1997, the CFI has committed $5.27 billion in support of more than 6,600 projects at 130 research institutions in 65 municipalities across Canada.
The Ontario Research Fund (ORF) is a key part of the government’s plan to support scientific excellence by supporting research that can be developed into innovative goods and services that will boost Ontario’s economy. Through a commitment of $730 million over four years, Ontario is providing the research community with one window for research funding. The Ontario Research Fund helps to attract and retain the best research talent from around the world by ensuring Ontario universities and research institutes have the equipment and infrastructure they need to remain at the forefront of global research excellence and scientific breakthroughs.
Founded in 1878, Western University delivers an exemplary learning experience that engages the best and brightest people challenging them to meet ever-higher standards in the classroom and beyond. Western excels in moving research out of the labs and into the lives of people around the world through public- and private-sector partnerships. Our researchers collaborate with colleagues across the campus, country and globe to inform policy on the world stage.