Understanding Moving/Damage Mechanism of Vehicles under Tornadoes for Enhancing Vehicle/Driver Safety

Tornadoes have caused catastrophic damage to buildings and vehicles. Although considerable research has been conducted on the performance of buildings under tornadoes, the performance of motor vehicles (e.g., cars, pickups, vans, and box trucks) under tornadoes was rarely studied. Unfortunately, about 15% of tornado fatalities during 1975–1995 were attributed to the moving or damage of motor vehicles and about 9% during 1985-2015. To protect motor vehicles from being damaged by tornadoes and accordingly to reduce tornado fatalities, the objective of this project is to understand the moving/damage mechanism of motor vehicles (e.g., sliding, flipping and lofting) under tornadoes using systematic computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, which will be verified and validated by the PI’s large-scale laboratory tornado simulator. To achieve the stated research objective, three research tasks have been planned. The proposed research will answer the following five research questions. 1) What tornado intensity can cause a vehicle to slide, flip and loft, respectively? 2) What role does atmospheric pressure drop at tornado center play in initiating each vehicle motion? 3) What role does turbulence in tornadic wind field play in initiating each vehicle motion? 4) Does internal pressure inside a motor vehicle play any role in vehicle moving? and 5) What potential modifications can be made to motor vehicles in order to defer the initiating of each vehicle motion? The research findings can not only help regular vehicles in the parking lot or on the road experience less damage, but also can be integrated into autonomous vehicles for them to make informed decisions and then take proper actions to reduce the tornado-induced damage. In addition, research findings can be used to improve tornado safety recommendations for drivers on the road.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $159,951.10
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3552348307

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Mid-America Transportation Center

  University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  2200 Vine Street, PO Box 830851
  Lincoln, NE  United States  68583-0851
• Project Managers:

  Stearns, Amy

• Performing Organizations:

  Missouri University of Science & Technology, Rolla

  Department of Engineering
  202 University Center
  Rolla, MO    65409
• Principal Investigators:

  Yan, Grace

• Start Date: 20240601
• Expected Completion Date: 20260630
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Deformation; Fluid dynamics; Internal forces; Motor vehicles; Simulation; Tornadoes; Wind; Wind pressure; Wind resistant design
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01972416
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Mid-America Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: 69A3552348307
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Nov 21 2025 2:07PM