LSU Portable Hurricane Tower
April 30, 2009
As part of the LSU Department of Mechanical Engineering’s (ME) Capstone Design II course, a team of ME undergraduates designed and fabricated “Storm 2.0,” a 25 meter (82 foot) tall portable tower with instrumentation to collect and transmit meteorological data when hurricanes reach landfall.
The team consisted of Santhana Balaji, Allison Belanger, Ryan Broughton, Eric Frederickson, Jack Giles, Peyton Mayre, Jonathan McNabb, Valerie Vogler, and Josh Williams. Their advisors were Drs. Su-Seng Pang and Wanjun Wang.
The team worked throughout two semesters on the project. They started with the 10m prototype created by last year’s ME students and focused on how they could improve the design and make it taller. The new tower is designed to be easily deployed. It may be transported to an area inside the predicted path of the hurricane and set up in just one-to-two hours with a small team of three or four people.
The modular tower may deploy to 10m, 18m, or 25m in height. Design considerations included triangular cross-section tower of hinged construction, hydraulic hoist with independent power supply, guyed supports, outriggers to prevent overturn, and data acquisition, with storage and transmission capability and separate power supply. They used software to test multiple designs and calculate wind loads. Safety was a consideration in design, construction, and deployment. For instance, the team utilized a remote-controlled non-free spooling winch for raising the tower. They also invested in professional welding training and practice and always worked in small groups.
Team members agree that their biggest challenge was in the actual construction of the device, which was a mammoth task. They used a Gantt chart and determined that they would need 18 weeks to construct the unit. They started the day of their last fall finals and worked through the Christmas break. They employed all the available tools in the machine shop to cut the metal supports. For weld preparation, they mostly used hand grinders. They utilized the shop’s MIG machines for welding and the gantry crane for moving the large components. Eric declared, “This project required constant work, day in and day out.” Bala agreed, and when asked how they balanced the Capstone class with their other classes, said, “We just had to put in 18 hour days.” In their presentation, the team mentioned that it took over 5500 man hours to create the Hurricane Tower; later in the day they said that they discovered that those calculations omitted the hours from the team member who worked on the wiring harness and data acquisition module—it should have been 7,000 man hours.
The LSU Hurricane Tower project was funded by the Board of Regents, a grant through the Hurricane Center, and a donation from Burgess Engineering. The team came in just under their $30k budget, at $28,874 in expenses. The finished tower supports 30 instruments and can transmit data live. The tower, including custom-built 25-foot trailer, weighs 11,500 lbs.
When asked what they will take away from this experience, Ryan said, “There is no substitute for teamwork!” Alison said, “Never be afraid to ask questions.” She quickly added, “All the people in the ME shop are very helpful!”
The “LSU Hurricane Tower (Storm 2.0)” was one of 14 senior design projects produced as part of the ME Capstone Design course. In this course, students team up to work on a design project of their choice. The first semester is spent in design, while the second semester focuses on constructing a working prototype. The course culminates in presentations at the end of the spring semester. Projects are judged by a design panel consisting of local industry leaders and LSU faculty and alumni.
The team wishes to thank their sponsors: the LSU Board of Regents, the LSU Hurricane Center, and BEI Inc. They also thank Central Hitch & Equipment of Baton Rouge.
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