I saw this on the news last night. Personally, I think this guy is going to get his crew killed. Tornadoes throw locomotives and combines around, but he thinks he's got it figured out. It should be interesting if he meets an F4 or F5. He also mentioned on the news that HE'S not going to be in it, but remotely controlling some of the instruments from another vehicle.

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=91799

Interesting design. Sad thing is that I suspect that for what he would spend in a couple of years on gas he could afford to buy several replacement truck of the more typical variety. After filling up such a beast I would be welcoming a tornado to take me away from my suffering.

Considering the options I concluded that there may be no practical tornado-proof truck.

Of course most of us aren't going to be chasing tornadoes. So combining protection and mobility wouldn't be necessary. Instead the issue would be how to protect your vehicle while it is parked where it normally is.

What you need for this would be a tornado resistant revetment. For a quick thumbnail design I would start with a concrete slab or dual track-way. then an anchoring system. Helix anchors, commonly used to hold down mobile homes, if I didn't have a heavy enough slab. Poured-in anchors if I did. Placement would be designed around the vehicle. I'm thinking fore and aft of each tire so you could use over-tire nylon hold-downs commonly used to ship vehicles.

Once the anchor system is set up I would build three walls at least as high as the vehicle roof with just enough space between them for teh vehicle and to open the doors on one side. Railroad ties or landscape ties would be good. As would surface bonded concrete block construction. Once built gravel would be pushed up around these walls to provide mass and drainage. Then a layer of landscaping fabric to keep the gravel open and a finishing cover of soil, possibly terraced, to hold grass or other ground cover.

The revetment should be a bit long so the fourth half height embankment can have a slope on both sides so you can drive into it. And to allow some room to work under the hood.

The plan would be to make this your normal parking spot. In normal use the revetment gives you pretty good protection from uplift and wind-blown debris. If it is known that a storm of event is likely you would install the hold-downs over the wheels.

Building one it wouldn't be much more difficult, with tools and materials on site, to extend the revetment ten or fifteen feet and to install some overhead cover, a sturdy door inside the shelter and a hardened door outside. This would be a shelter for people and supplies.

The roof could be a simple 5V heavily reinforced for uplift just to keep the rain off. Or a more substantial model of reinforced concrete capable of surviving harsher conditions and protecting the inhabitants from various dangers.


And just as son as I have the appropriate land and excess cash rattling around my pocket I will be sure to build one.

Good forethought. Your design would probably work well in most lesser ones, the problem that I've seen is F5 damage. Steel reinforced concrete completely shattered and destroyed, steel girders twisted like pretzels, asphalt literally peeled off roads.

I guess you gotta weigh the costs v.s. probability of getting hit by one. And I would bet the probability doesn't justify it.

I still think this truck will fly like a potato chip if they ever get lucky/unlucky.

What a heap!..lol

With something like that, you don’t talk about miles per gallon. You talk about gallons used per mile.

I'm surprised a lot of you guys haven't heard of the TIV before. Its been around for a few years now, and last year Discovery Channel did a series on it and the DOW (Doppler On Wheels). The DOW seeks out the tornadoes for Sean and will only send the TIV in if it isn't too powerful. If you think the TIV2 is a heap, you should see the old TIV!!! It started life as a Ford F250 (or was it a F350?) and was always having problems, it weighed about 14,000 IIRC on the standard (but enhanced!) Ford frame.

Roger

Yup, and the guy actually had some measure of success in the Discovery channel show.
But I had thought the first tiv was actually on some old station wagon frame... ?
Edit: Guess not :p
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/storm-chasers/vehicles/vehicles.html

I've been storm chasing quite a f ew times and all we needed was a decent-sized SUV. Good chasers put safety first and generally have a good idea how close to get.

"Good chasers put safety first"...

Where's the fun in that? It's not the mucho macho way.

Blindly charging into a tornado with an over sized, overpowered, overweight, armored truck ... well, that just screams 'manly fun'.

this guy has too much money, free time on his hands to chase tornados. He must be a millionaire to have that cash to build a armor truck and spend thousands of bucks on gas.