News Archives 2002  January | May | July | Sept | Dec

May 2002 Topics     current topics

• Hurricane test houses to be chosen on Carolina coast
• Consortium receives National Sea Grant Award for 2002-2003
• USC student wins Sullivan Science and Engineering Fellowship

Hurricane test houses to be chosen on Carolina coast

During the next year, five single-family homes along the South Carolina coast will be retrofitted using up-to-date hurricane-resistant techniques and outfitted with special monitoring devices to capture valuable information about the intense wind pressures of major hurricanes.

Sea Grant researcher Tim Reinhold, a Clemson University civil engineering professor, and his colleagues have been working on a multi-year program to learn how to make houses more resistant to strong winds. They are gathering evidence on how houses retrofitted with wind-protection techniques withstand real-life hurricane wind conditions.

“We hope to learn which retrofit techniques will enable a house to survive during a category 3 hurricane or greater,” says Reinhold.

For this project, the researchers will pick five houses, spaced at least 15 to 30 miles apart, along the South Carolina coast from the Savannah River to Little River. The structures must be on the mainland in elevated areas that do not flood during hurricanes. As a result, the house won’t be washed away by the storm surge and measurements of wind can be made.

Each of the five chosen houses will be inspected and analyzed. Suggestions will be made on what hurricane-mitigation improvements are expected to be most effective. Some of the costs for retrofitting the houses will be supported by a sister research study. Mitigation efforts can include attaching the roof sheathing better with additional screws and adhesive, and adding approved shutters and hurricane straps.

On each house, the engineers will set up a wind monitoring system, screwing twenty-eight brackets for wind-pressure sensors onto roofs, walls, and attics. Two days before a storm is expected to make landfall, the engineers will install the sensors, plus anemometers to measure wind speed over the roof. The Clemson engineers have already outfitted twenty homes in Florida with similar devices, including ten on the East Coast and ten on the Gulf of Mexico. So far, none of the homes have been hit directly by a major storm.

Once all of the sensors are in place, the researchers will wait for a storm to strike. With these devices, the researchers can learn more about wind pressures on particular homes and the possible benefits of retrofitting measures.

Reinhold and his colleagues have previously studied wind pressures in the laboratory. And they have torn apart flood-damaged houses in Horry County to compare strengths of retrofitted and non-retrofitted roofs and walls. With this information, they have collaborated with Applied Research Associates of Raleigh, N.C., on an engineering and cost-benefit analysis of various hurricane-mitigation measures that are likeliest to enhance the performance of homes in particular geographic areas.

Reinhold hopes that the project houses along the coast will provide a rich source of data about retrofitting techniques. “When we get a storm that actually hits some of these retrofitted houses, we can evaluate how much better they perform versus houses that were not retrofitted.” Then researchers could provide better advice about which construction techniques are most cost-effective in reducing storm damage in coastal areas.

Don’t look for simple answers applicable to everyone on the coast, however. “There’s no single answer to retrofitting a house for a high-wind environment,” he says. “You have to look at how each house is built, and what its problems are, and develop solutions for that particular location and house.”

Consortium receives national Sea Grant Award for 2002-2003

The National Sea Grant College Program has awarded $1.6 million to the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium to support its research, extension, communications, and education efforts for 2002-03. Fourteen research and education projects have received funding to examine a number of marine and coastal-resource needs.

Coastal Ocean Studies

• In a continuing study, Paul Work of Clemson University and George Voulgaris of the University of South Carolina (USC) examine potential beach-nourishment “borrow” sites. The investigators will identify and characterize beach-nourishment materials in nearshore areas, which could be dredged and pumped onto beaches.
• Voulgaris will also work on a study to examine the relationship between an offshore sand shoal in the Myrtle Beach area and coastal erosion dynamics. He will characterize and quantify the potential for the shoal to be a sustainable “borrow” site for beach nourishment.

Ecosystem Dynamics

• Amy Ringwood of the S.C. Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR) will continue studies on methods of testing and validating promising cellular biomarkers. This study has the potential to yield tools that will identify individuals and populations of two common estuarine bivalve species, the oyster Crassostrea virginica and marsh mussel Geukensia demissa, which are experiencing chronic stress.

• In an ongoing study, James T. Morris of USC and colleagues will refine a model of plant succession of tidal freshwater wetlands on the Cooper River, South Carolina. The researchers will continue examining former rice fields, which are changing rapidly due to human intervention. Information from this project will be provided to state and federal natural resource agencies as they address management of impoundments.

• Joseph Staton of USC and colleagues will use the copepod Amphiascus tenuiremis as an estuarine model, aiming to understand the potential risk of a new pesticide, and develop a monitoring tool for fipronil, a newly approved and highly toxic pesticide. Fipronil is being used in areas adjacent to estuarine systems in South Carolina, such as golf courses.

• Timothy Shaw and Thomas Chandler of USC will develop exposure-toxicity risk assessment tools based on the bioaccumulation of heavy metals in the benthic foraminiferan Ammonia becarii, and toxic response of the common benthic copepod, Amphiascus tenuiremis. Ultimately, coastal managers could use information gathered during this study to better determine new approaches to toxic site cleanup.

• Willard Moore of USC will address the effects on coastal water quality and ecosystem health resulting from coastal land-use change. This research project, a joint effort with Georgia Sea Grant, will determine the nutrient flux of groundwater and impacts on various biological processes in tidal creek waters in the Satilla River (Ga.) system. The proposed work will provide answers to basic questions about coastal ecosystem health, and complements the Consortium’s Land Use-Coastal Ecosystem Study (LU-CES), funded by the NOAA Coastal Ocean Program.

Climate and Hazards

• Timothy Reinhold of Clemson University will characterize the wind structure in hurricanes and the associated wind loading of buildings. He will also evaluate performance of retrofit technologies in reducing hurricane wind damage and losses. This research could improve the ability of government and industry to establish cost-effective mitigation measures.

Emerging Technologies

• In a continuing project, Laszlo Marton of USC expects to pave the way for a genetically engineered Spartina alterniflora plant, which can be used to absorb pollutants in estuarine and marsh habitats. Such improved transgenic plants would be used for soil or water bioremediation in coastal sites.

• Joseph Quattro of USC and a colleague will use the inland silverside, Menidia beryllina, as an estuarine “sentinel species.” The researchers will study theoretical and empirical population genetics to determine chronic and subtle effects of pollutants on marine and estuarine resources. One product will be genetic assays to identify exposure levels of contaminants of concern in South Carolina.

• Paul Gross and Jonas Almeida of the Medical University of South Carolina will lay the groundwork for new methods and technologies to examine environmental stresses and disease using the Atlantic white shrimp, Litopenaeus setiferus, as a model organism. The researchers will also train new researchers, particularly graduate students, in the new and emerging technologies associated with “eco-genomics.”

Sustainable Economic Development

• Red drum, Sciaenops ocellatus, is South Carolina’s most popular coastal recreational fish, but the fishery is in severe decline. Theodore Smith of DNR and colleagues will attempt various culture techniques for red drum broodstock for stocking of Murrells Inlet, S.C. The researchers will track the release of nearly half a million of the sport fish each year of the study, determining the overall stocking program’s effectiveness in various juvenile habitats.

• A research team led by Charles Weirich of DNR will examine the potential of new technologies in shrimp production systems, which could enhance future expansion and development of the U.S. commercial shrimp-farming industry. The researchers will evaluate selected biological and mechanical filtration technologies for their potential use in zero-exchange, biosecure, super-intensive shrimp production systems.

Marine Education

• In an ongoing COASTeam project, Leslie Sautter of the College of Charleston and colleagues at the S.C. Aquarium will develop and implement a marine and aquatic science education curriculum aligned to the state Science Curriculum Standards at each elementary grade level.

USC student wins Sullivan Science and Engineering Fellowship

Amanda LaZar of Mt. Pleasant, S.C. is the 2002-03 winner of the Kathryn D. Sullivan Science and Engineering Fellowship, sponsored by the S.C. Space Grant Consortium and the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium.
A mechanical engineer major at the University of South Carolina, LaZar is studying materials science and materials processes. She hopes to have a career at NASA someday.

The Sullivan fellowship is awarded annually to a student of either science or engineering who is a rising senior at a university in South Carolina. The award of $7,000 covers tuition, fees and books.

News Archives 2000

News Archives 2001

News Archives 2002

News Archives 2003

News Archives 2004

News Archives 2005