Facility Highlights

A Single, Highly Versatile Facility

Due to their complexities, cost, and scale, it is not feasible to construct two facilities of this size that separately meet the needs of the wind and coastal communities...and miss the opportunity to study the interactions between these hazards. NICHE is designed to offer versatility in configurations, scales, and intensities necessary to faithfully simulate the effects of wind and coastal hazards on the built and natural environment at unprecedented intensities for specimens up to full-scale...meeting a wide range of user needs.

Technical Specifications

User Profiles

Versatility in Specimen Scales

Full-Scale Structures (1:1 Single Family Homes), Large-Scale Infrastructure (1:10-20 Offshore Structures), Reduced-Scale Community Models, Morphological Studies

Simulation Types

Nearshore Storm Simulation and Evolving Wind and Water Impacts

Replicates combined wind, wave, and overland flow effects at the coastline and farther inland
Focuses on shoreline kinematics rather than deep-water approach
Uses field measurements or numerical simulations to drive generation system
Captures storm evolution as it approaches the coast

Controlled Wind-Wave Interaction

NICHE generates extreme winds and waves to replicate full-scale natural conditions for most scenarios
Design enables research on characterization of wind-wave interaction
Simulates the combined impacts of wind-water hazards on structures replicating the real conditions

Extreme Conditions Replication

NICHE-generated wave and surge correspond to 5% annual exceedance probability (AEP) of conditions at many locations in the Gulf and the East Coast
Based on the recent storm records and the design wind speeds in ASCE 7-22 wind maps, NICHE will target 180 mph sustained winds, and 200 mph gusts

Example Investigations

Wind Only Investigations

Damage Initiation and Progression under Severe Wind Events
Pressure Equalization and Wind-Driven Rain Intrusion
Non-stationary Wind Characteristics and Impacts

Water Only Investigations

Coastal Erosion under Storm Events
Performance of Natural and Constructed Protective Systems
Flow-Structure-Sediment Interactions under Coastal Hazards

Wind-Water Investigations

Combined Wind and Water Damage on Coastal and Inland Structures
Hurricane Impacts on Elevated Structures
Assessment of Foundation and Pile Systems

Expanding the Reach of Physical Experiments

NICHE's Convergence Research infrastructure helps user design better experiments and extend those discoveries well beyond the limited number of tests they conduct.

Curated Storm Events

NICHE will provide a catalog of historical storm events with standard set ups and test protocols validated against field observations so users can reliably reproduce specific storm events. Beyond providing reproducible benchmarks, users can use this capability to recreate specific failures documented in that event to understand damage sequencing. Such studies can be especially tangible as past events remain imprinted on the minds of stakeholders.

Digital Twins

NICHE's views Digital Twins as a powerful tool for exploration, engagement and visualization. NICHE envisions a range of Digital Twins that can support design of experiments, hybrid simulation, and immersive experiences for visualization, user training and stakeholder engagement.

Community Testbeds

While experiments may focus on individual structures, these can be embedded into NICHE's curated Community Testbeds to examine regional impacts. Baseline studies for these testbeds establish pre-mitigation conditions against which users can quantify the benefit of proposed interventions, generating Return-on-Investment (ROI) analyses that can promote stakeholder buy-in.

Convergence at NICHE