Frequently Asked Questions

The National Full-Scale Testing Infrastructure for Community Hardening in Extreme Wind, Surge, and Wave Events (NICHE) is a major facility, currently under design, that when approved and funded for construction, will provide a wide user community with a versatile full-scale testing facility for the study of the joint effects of wind (including stationary and non-stationary winds) and coastal hazards (including surge, wave, currents, overland flow) on the built and/or natural environments at scales and intensities greater than any other facility in the world. Individual hazard impacts can be simulated as well at those unparalleled levels. Beyond these unprecedented experimental capabilities, the facility provides a convergence research infrastructure that enables users to uniquely integrate experiments, computational models, and field observations in their investigations. Each user project will feature multiple supported pathways for stakeholder engagements that maximize the potential for NICHE user research to have impact on policy and practice.    

Both the wind and coastal communities are constrained by scale effects given the size of existing facilities. These scale effects demand significant simplification of structure and infrastructure models, compromising the ability to faithfully reproduce the load path and various component and connection details and validate mitigation approaches. Moreover, coastal processes such as the impacts of sediment transport, beach and dune erosion, and morphodynamics on coastal resilience are challenging to simulate at smaller scales. Similarly, assessment of natural (e.g., mangroves, vegetated dunes), engineered (e.g., seawalls, levees), and hybrid solutions are constrained. These scale constraints are significant for the few facilities capable of simulating these hazards jointly. Thus, scale effects inhibit the research community’s ability to faithfully reproduce these natural phenomena independently and especially jointly to reproduce nonlinearities associated with combined wind and hydrodynamic interactions. With the rising toll of these hazards on society, the ability to more faithfully reproduce their effects and impacts on society will position researchers focused on these hazards for breakthrough discoveries to achieve a safer and more resilient America. The results and discoveries will be applicable around the world as well. 

In real hurricane events, wind, surge, and wave flows interact dynamically. The presence of surge and waves changes surface roughness and boundary layer profiles for wind, while wind modulates wave growth, breaking, and directionality. These dynamic couplings (which affect the impacts on coastal structures) can only be studied when both fluids are simulated together at full scale. Moreover, during coastal events, wind, surge, and wave forces act simultaneously on structures. These forces interact through shared physical pathways and determine the sequential causation of integrated wind and water damage. NICHE’s full-scale combined capabilities will help simulate the dynamic interactions of wind and water hazards and their impacts on structures and coastal processes. Accurate determination of performance limits and full-scale evaluation of mitigation strategies will become possible. Beyond the size and scale of the facility and its ability to jointly simulate wind and coastal hazards, the facility’s convergence research infrastructure has a number of distinct offerings. First, it uses field observations to create curated storm set ups, allowing users to repeatably reproduce legacy storm scenarios and recreate observed failures to inform mitigation solutions. Second, it enables access to state-of-the-art computational modeling to design their experiments, extend their experimental findings through verified and validated models, and ultimately project the socioeconomic impacts of their findings on society. Finally, its robust approach to stakeholder engagement creates multiple pathways for research translation to speed broader impacts. This was made possible by bringing together a team of traditionally siloed disciplines like wind engineering, coastal engineering, structural engineering, and political science.   

NICHE has three points of versatility (as detailed in the “Versatility” subsection): 

• NICHE will have the ability to operate in an open- or closed-circuit mode.  

• NICHE can be operated for joint wind and water forcing as well as for wind only and water only impacts.  

• NICHE can simulate both straight-line and non-stationary wind effects. 

The facility will also have different beach profiles, sediment pits and reusable specimens available. 

​With NICHE’s Convergence Research approach, the team anticipates broad societal benefits. Based on existing benefit-cost ratios (BCR) from federal benchmarking efforts and academic research benefits can include:  

• Mitigating Evolving Risk through Building Codes: Existing BCRs from federal benchmarking efforts suggest that if NICHE mainstreamed more resilient design guidance for new construction in only 10% of the nation’s vulnerable communities, it would save our country over a half a billion dollars annually. 

• Advancing Performance-Based Standards: With increasing emphasis on functional recovery and even the necessity to shelter in place, NICHE can play an important role in advancing performance-based design for natural hazards. BCRs for hurricane winds of 5:1 and for storm surge of 7:1 will result if NICHE succeeds.   

• Cost-Effective Retrofitting Strategies: NICHE’s development of minimally intrusive and cost-effective retrofit strategies can deliver a BCR in excess of 6:1; if NICHE successfully champions cost-effective retrofit strategies for even a tenth of the vulnerable coastal properties, it could save our nation $14 billion. 

• Next Generation Coastal Protection: NICHE can critically advance coastal protective strategies that reduce the potential of damaging storm surge and wave action in coastal communities, for BCRs of up to 11:1. 

​​While NICHE users will certainly expand their lines of inquiry over time, the team envisions three primary research areas for NICHE’s first Science Plan: 

• RESEARCH AREA 1: Modeling Impacts of Atmospheric Events on Communities to Build a Safer America 

• RESEARCH AREA 2: Modeling Coastal Processes and Protective Systems under Interacting Hazards for More Resilient U.S. Coastal Regions 

• RESEARCH AREA 3: Mitigating Escalating Losses from Natural Hazards and Promoting Resilient Recovery 

See "Research Areas" page for further details. 

NICHE would be available for use by academic, public, and private sector researchers, practitioners, and product developers. Per the policies of NSF, appropriate scheduling and usage rates will be posted for different user groups, with priority placed on NSF-funded research projects. 

“The Timeline” page reviews the current projected timeline for commissioning (presently 2033). Processes for engaging the NICHE team to be among the first to test in NICHE will be announced closer to commissioning.

​​Two sites near the Florida International University campus in Miami, Florida are currently being evaluated; other sites will be considered if these prove non-viable. NICHE will have a range of programs and services to help researchers temporarily relocate to supervise their tests and remote view their experiments. Other immersive experiences will be available for key stakeholders, K-12 educators and the general public.  

“The Process" page details the different venues that have been used to solicit community input thus far – such as Convergence Workshops and Stakeholder Interviews. As the design progresses, we will have Town Halls to share updates and solicit further input. In the meantime, the NICHE advisory bodies and NSF review teams continue to bring valuable independent perspectives to the design process.  

Simply put: because you want to have impact and because you have questions that you have not been able to answer due to the limitations of current facilities. These limitations are beyond their size and simulation capacities....but rather the approach taken for decades: siloing the wind and coastal communities in different facilities, siloing experimental, computational and field investigations in different facilities, and siloing research from the stakeholders in most need of new evidence for technology transfer and implementation. NICHE’s unprecedented capabilities, its versatility, and the Convergence Research Approach simultaneously address these existing barriers to create real advantages for its users.  

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Akin to existing other major NSF facilities, NICHE will have published facility rates that will be established and posted closer to commissioning. NSF’s operational support will help subsidize the usage rates for NSF projects (such as for the NHERI program). 

Similar to the current modalities with the NHERI network, NICHE will have a transparent scheduling process. However, users will engage with the facility well before the request to schedule, developing their proposal concept (supported by NICHE faculty and staff) as discussed in Step 2 of the User Journey (see "User Journey" section). The scheduling process will be posted on the NICHE website closer to commissioning.  

NICHE has the ability to support wind-wave, wind-only, and wave-only experiments. Combined wind and water experiments can include various combinations of wind speed and direction, wave height and period, surge height, and overland flow. Wind capabilities include straight-line and transient winds. Water experiments include mechanically generated waves and currents. The size of NICHE will allow researchers to approach full scale for the majority of hurricane winds, and maximum wave heights and periods near the shoreline for full-scale intermediate to steep beach profiles. Furthermore, the unprecedented size of NICHE allows for testing up to full scale, e.g., 2-story home under these extreme conditions. Thus the facility is highly versatile and can meet the needs of a wide range of potential users. 

​The final technical specifications will not be available until closer to commissioning, but see "Technical Specifications" page for the capabilities currently envisioned based on the latest iterations of the design.  

NICHE supports a number of convergence research modalities detailed more on the “Convergence Research at NICHE” page. In short, users have the ability to integrate field observations and computational modeling with their physical experiments – allowing the strengths of each to offset the limitations of others. NICHE also brings together previously siloed communities of not only researchers but also stakeholder groups to broaden the perspectives contributing to the research process. Notably, NICHE's programming provides the support points for researchers to engage in highly interdisciplinary research that is responsive to stakeholder needs so research translation at the end of a project is replaced by research engagement throughout the project.  

​NICHE is designing a robust stakeholder engagement plan, with dedicated staffing, processes and training, to encourage research that is more responsive to the needs of policymakers and practitioners. Thus the team promotes early research engagement, with processes for those stakeholders to provide early and ongoing input to the projects tested at NICHE. NICHE’s Science Plan will include input from practitioners and frontline communities, and NICHE will provide support for multiple potential pathways to translate research, with staffing, best practices, and templates for packaging your evidence for communication beyond academic audiences. These pathways include codification, commercialization, policy reform, and design support.  

​Closer to commissioning, NICHE will post its virtual and in-person touring opportunities. There also will be dedicated programs for K-12 and general public that couple tours with other enriching activities. 

​NICHE aspires to serve frontline communities grappling with wind and coastal risk. While it may not be common for a community to directly propose a study in the facility, we invite communities to be involved in the collaborative design of research projects at NICHE. Communities can also benefit from the community testbeds as a platform for their own flood plain management plans and risk awareness. Experiencing a test at NICHE in person or virtually can also be a powerful way to grow your community’s understanding of the risks it faces and potential solutions.  ​​

Beyond faculty advisors writing a successful proposal for testing at NICHE to directly involve their graduate student, NICHE will have a number of ways early career researchers can get involved, including undergraduate and graduate students. NICHE is considering a mentorship program where graduate students can be in residence to gain experience on other projects, NICHE’s computational assets are available for graduate students to use in their dissertations, and NICHE will explore payload projects to take advantage of an ongoing test to generate valuable data for another investigator. A Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program is expected to be implemented for undergraduate students to gain experience in wind and coastal hazards mitigation (similar to the NHERI REU Summer Program). 

Trade groups and industry partners are certainly welcome to request testing time at the facility. We also invite these groups to be involved in the collaborative design of research projects at NICHE and to propose topics where further research would be beneficial as part of NICHE’s Science Plan. Trade groups and industry are vital partners in promoting the uptake of discoveries at NICHE; the NICHE team would welcome your group’s involvement as part of our stakeholder engagement program. Such groups are also welcome to experience a test at the facility in person or virtually.