On RFD-TV: Christine Wittich
RFD TV
Author
05/25/2021
Added
52
Plays
Description
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering Christine Wittich talks live on RFD-TV about her research into structural integrity of grain bins during powerful straight-line winds. The interview aired May 25, 2021. More on the story from Nebraska Today: https://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/husker-researcher-studies-derecho-impact-with-eye-toward-improving-silo/
Searchable Transcript
Toggle between list and paragraph view.
- [00:00:00.530]Well, it's been almost a year
- [00:00:01.800]since the derecho swept across the Midwest, last summer.
- [00:00:04.940]As recovery continues, a husker researcher is working
- [00:00:08.060]to improve grain bin structures
- [00:00:10.370]to better withstand severe weather in the future.
- [00:00:13.610]Well, Christine Wittich,
- [00:00:14.490]with the University of Nebraska Lincoln
- [00:00:16.240]joins us now for an update on that effort.
- [00:00:18.790]And, Christine, thanks for your effort here,
- [00:00:20.440]joining us this morning.
- [00:00:21.800]So why did you decide to look
- [00:00:23.470]into the damage that was sustained specifically
- [00:00:25.890]by grain bins last year?
- [00:00:28.790]Absolutely.
- [00:00:29.623]Thanks so much for that question, Janet.
- [00:00:31.670]So, in short, it's to do my part,
- [00:00:33.670]to help make our communities
- [00:00:35.210]much more resilient to extreme weather
- [00:00:38.060]For all of my career, as a structural engineer,
- [00:00:40.360]I've largely been focused
- [00:00:41.710]on how we can take our individual structures,
- [00:00:44.150]our infrastructure systems, and now our communities,
- [00:00:47.130]and make them more resilient to natural hazards.
- [00:00:50.730]And when we look at communities in general,
- [00:00:51.567]recent studies have shown that rural communities tend
- [00:00:56.310]to be a lot less disaster resilient,
- [00:00:59.640]compared to their more urban counterparts.
- [00:01:01.990]And a large part of that is due
- [00:01:03.880]to the reliance on the agricultural industry
- [00:01:07.150]and the very unique structures that support it,
- [00:01:10.450]notably, or one of which, is the steel grain bin
- [00:01:14.220]and the designing construction
- [00:01:15.630]of these bins varies quite substantially.
- [00:01:18.220]And so a lot of data is needed
- [00:01:20.680]for us to have a good understanding
- [00:01:22.590]about how they're going to perform in future events.
- [00:01:25.570]And unfortunately, this event,
- [00:01:27.680]this past summer's derecho,
- [00:01:29.680]presented the opportunity for us to do that.
- [00:01:32.578]And so a team of us, from UNL,
- [00:01:35.430]went out to a survey about seven regions,
- [00:01:38.500]a total of 500, over 500, individual bins
- [00:01:42.480]to provide us with that data,
- [00:01:44.390]to understand how these structures fail
- [00:01:46.230]in light of all the potential variations.
- [00:01:48.940]So describe the vulnerability,
- [00:01:50.540]specifically of grain bins,
- [00:01:52.290]in this severe weather condition.
- [00:01:55.048]Absolutely. So grain bins that you're likely familiar with
- [00:01:58.580]are cylindrical, thin walled, steel structures,
- [00:02:01.830]anchored to a concrete pad.
- [00:02:04.390]When these are empty,
- [00:02:05.223]they're particularly vulnerable to high winds.
- [00:02:07.700]The thin cylindrical walls can buckle
- [00:02:09.920]under the wind's pressure.
- [00:02:11.440]The Anchorage can also fail,
- [00:02:13.490]which can be particularly dangerous,
- [00:02:15.440]as the structure can now impact everything that's around it.
- [00:02:18.686]Green bins can also fail
- [00:02:20.940]when they're full, or partially full.
- [00:02:23.340]And one of the ways that we saw this
- [00:02:25.050]in the field, several times, was failure
- [00:02:27.700]of tear off, of the entire, or part, of the roof,
- [00:02:31.440]exposing all of the material that's being stored
- [00:02:35.030]and leading to potential contamination.
- [00:02:37.900]So Christine,
- [00:02:38.733]what are the next steps in this research effort?
- [00:02:41.640]And are we maybe going to have a new style grain bin
- [00:02:43.790]on the market, anytime soon?
- [00:02:46.780]Absolutely. Thanks for that question.
- [00:02:48.890]So what we're currently doing is trying
- [00:02:50.720]to build probabilistic models.
- [00:02:52.530]So, based on all this real world data,
- [00:02:55.240]can we say the probability
- [00:02:57.050]that a given grain bin, in its location,
- [00:03:00.060]you know, with its design and construction,
- [00:03:02.210]what's the probability that that's going to fail,
- [00:03:04.190]given certain wind speeds?
- [00:03:05.680]And this type of predictive model is really important,
- [00:03:08.760]due to all the variations,
- [00:03:10.440]so that we can help make those best recommendations
- [00:03:13.360]for how to build this structure better.
- [00:03:15.820]And in addition to looking just
- [00:03:17.550]at the individual structure, which is our focus right now
- [00:03:20.840]thinking a lot bigger picture, we're collaborating,
- [00:03:24.360]you know, interdisciplinarily,
- [00:03:26.100]with sociologists, with economists,
- [00:03:28.390]with community members, to help understand
- [00:03:30.920]what are the best disaster mitigative solutions
- [00:03:34.620]that we can recommend
- [00:03:36.070]to enable an entire agricultural community
- [00:03:39.050]to withstand future hazards.
- [00:03:41.850]All right, well, Christine, thanks
- [00:03:43.030]for sharing your insight with us today.
- [00:03:45.000]Assistant professor of engineering
- [00:03:46.600]with the university of Nebraska Lincoln,
- [00:03:48.510]Christine Wittich joining us, again, today.
- [00:03:50.760]You can learn more. Go online to wittich.unl.edu.
The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!
You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.
Log in to post comments
Embed
Copy the following code into your page
HTML
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%; overflow: hidden; position:relative; -webkit-box-flex: 1; flex-grow: 1;"> <iframe style="bottom: 0; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; border: 0; height: 100%; width: 100%;" src="https://mediahub.unl.edu/media/17022?format=iframe&autoplay=0" title="Video Player: On RFD-TV: Christine Wittich" allowfullscreen ></iframe> </div>
Comments
0 Comments