Video: Simulator recreates powerful storms

When it comes to extreme weather Japan’s population have more on their minds than a repeat of last summer’s record-breaking temperatures, when some 170 died from heat stroke. It seems the number of powerful tornadoes hitting the country may be on the increase.

In an effort to understand how extreme weather causes structural damage, four Japanese organisations – the National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management (NILIM), the Building Research Institute, the University of Tokyo and the Disaster Prevention Research Institute at Kyoto University – have been developing a tornado simulator .

“We’re doing this because there’s been many more reports of serious structural damages in recent years compared to before,” says Hitomitsu Kikitsu at NILIM in Tsukuba, Ibaraki.

The simulator is 1.5 metres in diameter and is mounted on a frame that is 2.3 metres tall and 5 metres wide. It can generate maximum wind velocity of 15 to 20 metres per second, enough to simulate an F3-size storm. On Japan’s Fujita Scale, an F3 storm is one powerful enough to uproot large trees, lift and hurl cars, knock down walls and destroy steel-frame structures.


“This device has the ability to simulate a F3-size storm and that’s never been done in Japan,” Kikitsu says.

Kikitsu and his team plan to test the device by building model houses that fit under his simulator.