Storm Shelters Resilient to Changing Canadian Climate

The recent tornado that hit the Ottawa-Gatineau region in September 2018 damaged hundreds of homes and many hydro poles/towers leaving more than 450K customers without power. In Canada, the average annual loss due to local events (i.e. thunderstorms, tornados and downbursts) is in the order of $200M. The number of these extreme local events has been increasing during the past three (3) decades due to climate change and is expected to continue increasing. The storm shelter industry in the United States has progressed in terms of addressing hurricane and tornado winds, but this is not the case in Canada. Most available shelters in the US are not designed to withstand the Canadian climate (i.e. extreme temperature variation), require heavy construction and/or costly transportation and are not multi-purpose. The proposed research project focuses on designing an affordable, easy-to-transport/install storm shelter suitable for local storms in Canada. The shelter is inspired by the “bunkie” concept. The design relies on conducting Computational Fluid Dynamic simulations to identify a potential shelter solution(s), which will be tested at Ryerson University’s wind tunnel for further validation and evaluation of the maximum wind speed the shelter can withstand.

Faculty Supervisor:

Haitham Aboshosha

Student:

Partner:

Four Chambers Safety Specialists Inc.

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Toronto Metropolitan University

Program: