Related Links: McLaren Engineering home | Museum of Science & Industry home | PRG home | Rockwell Home

AT THE EYE OF THE STORM

With its new 26,000 square-foot exhibit, the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI), lets visitors manipulate the largest interior tornado ever created. The exhibit features twenty controllable dampers, 48 ultrasonic misters, a maximum air flow rate of 120,000 cfm, and nearly 60,000 pounds of steel. Besides the tornado, the permanent exhibit reveals the extraordinary science behind lightning, fire, tsunamis, sunlight, avalanches, and atoms in motion.

The tornado is the largest effect in the hall, spanning from the floor to the 60’ ceiling, occupying a footprint 27’ in diameter and weighing 75,000 pounds. The 40’ vortex of swirling air and vapor continuously rises from the floor and is controllable by guests through a series of dampers that shape the air column. From the balcony level guests can activate lasers to cut through and reveal the airflow patterns of the illuminated vortex.

The Museum wanted an effect that would take the air flow created by two industrial fans in the ceiling and create a visible vortex using fog that could be controlled through a guest interface or by using preprogrammed settings for demonstrations. Once preliminary designs were done, Production Resource Group (PRG) joined the team to engineer, build and install the unprecedented

interior tornado, working closely with Christopher Wilson, senior project manager of Museum Exhibits for MSI to realize the design of environmental artist Ned Kahn and architect Jack Pascarosa, AIA, of the New York-based firm Evidence Design.

PRG constructed a fully interactive tornado that met stringent building codes and artistic qualifications. “It took a lot of design and engineering,” explains Sara Rockwell, I.E. Mechanical Engineer for PRG’s Integrated Systems Division. “In the exhibit, two 48” OD steel tubes funnel the air from a pair of the industrial fans down the length of the tornado. Ten custom damper assemblies cut into each tube, for a total of 20, continuing to funnel the air out into the center chamber, which is 40’ tall and about 24’ in diameter. At the top of the chamber there is a 90” ID tube that has a second pair of industrial fans pulling the air up. To make the vortex visible, 48 ultrasonic foggers were placed in a 9’ diameter pool beneath the floor. As the fog rises up out of the floor the flow created by the industrial fans forms the fog into the vortex.”

Guests interact with the tornado by controlling some of the dampers. On each of the twenty dampers is a 10VDC spring return actuator, which is wired to the


CONTINUED >

Previous Page Print this page Next Page