Tornado Intercept Vehicle
Encyclopedia
The TIV 2
Casey and his team developed and built the second Tornado Intercept Vehicle, dubbed "TIV 2", to be featured in their next IMAXIMAX
IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
movie and the Storm Chasers series. Work began in September 2007 by 40 welding students at the Great Plains Technology Center in Lawton, Oklahoma and was completed in time for the 2008 tornado chase season. TIV 2 was designed to address some of the problems experienced with the original TIV, namely its low ground clearance, lack of four-wheel drive
Four-wheel drive
Four-wheel drive, 4WD, or 4×4 is a four-wheeled vehicle with a drivetrain that allows all four wheels to receive torque from the engine simultaneously...
, and low top speed. It is based on a Dodge
Dodge
Dodge is a United States-based brand of automobiles, minivans, and sport utility vehicles, manufactured and marketed by Chrysler Group LLC in more than 60 different countries and territories worldwide....
Ram 3500 that was strengthened and converted to six-wheel drive
Six-wheel drive
Six-wheel drive, 6WD or 6x6 is a drivetrain configuration of six wheels, all of which are driven simultaneously by the vehicle's engine. Unlike four-wheel drive drivetrains, the configuration is largely confined to off-road and military vehicles, particularly heavy-duty ones...
by adding a third axle
Axle
An axle is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to its surroundings, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearings or bushings are provided at the mounting points where the axle...
. After season two the six-wheel drive system was modified to four-wheel drive. It is powered by a 6.7-liter Cummins turbodiesel engine, modified with propane and water injection
Water injection (engines)
In internal combustion engines, water injection, also known as anti-detonant injection, is spraying water into the cylinder or incoming fuel-air mixture to cool the combustion chambers of the engine, allowing for greater compression ratios and largely eliminating the problem of engine knocking...
to produce 625 hp. This gives TIV 2 an estimated top speed of over 100 mi/h. Its fuel capacity is 95 gallons (359.6 l), giving TIV 2 an approximate range of 750 miles (1,207 km). The body of TIV 2 is constructed of a 1/8-inch steel skin welded over a 2 inches (50.8 mm) square tubing steel frame. The windows in TIV 2 are all bullet-resistant 1 5/8-inch interlayered polycarbonate
Lexan
Lexan is a registered trademark for SABIC Innovative Plastics' brand of polycarbonate resin thermoplastic. Polycarbonate polymer is produced by reacting bisphenol A with carbonyl dichloride, also known as phosgene. Lexan is the brand name for polycarbonate sheet and resin in a wide range of grades...
sheets and tempered glass
Toughened glass
Toughened or tempered glass is a type of safety glass processed by controlled thermal or chemical treatments to increase its strength compared with normal glass. Tempering creates balanced internal stresses which cause the glass, when broken, to crumble into small granular chunks instead of...
. TIV 2 also features an IMAX filming turret similar to the one on the original TIV. The original TIV's somewhat cumbersome hydraulic claws were not used on TIV 2 in favor of six hydraulic skirts that drop down to deflect wind over the TIV to stabilize it and protect the underside from debris, and four hydraulically operated anchoring spikes.
TIV 2 debuted on the second season of Storm Chasers, which began airing on the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
in October 2008. Its initial performance did not go well, as it was plagued by mechanical failures, including several broken axle
Axle
An axle is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to its surroundings, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearings or bushings are provided at the mounting points where the axle...
s, which forced Casey to abandon TIV 2 and return to chasing in the original TIV until TIV 2's issues could be resolved. Although Casey hoped he would be back in TIV 2 before the end of the season, repairs and modifications on TIV 2 took longer than expected and Casey was shown on Storm Chasers ending the season in the original TIV.
In the fall of 2008, TIV 2 received several modifications, mostly focused on reducing the vehicle's 16,500-pound weight. To achieve this, certain less crucial areas of TIV 2's armor were converted from steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
to aluminum
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
while more vital areas were reinforced with supplemental composite armor
Composite armour
Composite armour is a type of vehicle armour consisting of layers of different material such as metals, plastics, ceramics or air. Most composite armour are lighter than their all-metal equivalent, but instead occupy a larger volume for the same resistance to penetration...
consisting of thin layers of steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
, Kevlar
Kevlar
Kevlar is the registered trademark for a para-aramid synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed at DuPont in 1965, this high strength material was first commercially used in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires...
, polycarbonate
Lexan
Lexan is a registered trademark for SABIC Innovative Plastics' brand of polycarbonate resin thermoplastic. Polycarbonate polymer is produced by reacting bisphenol A with carbonyl dichloride, also known as phosgene. Lexan is the brand name for polycarbonate sheet and resin in a wide range of grades...
and rubber. In all, the weight reduction measures brought TIV 2's weight down to 14,300 pounds. The safety systems were also improved, with the three front wind skirts being consolidated into one and new hydraulic stabilizing spikes to further increase stability in high winds. Other modifications included additional doors that provided every seat position with an exit (wind skirts up or down), and a redesigned IMAX turret with 50% more windows. The third axle was disconnected from the drive train, thus changing TIV2 to 6×4 from its 6×6 design. The third axle now acts as a brace for the vehicle's weight.
The TIV 2 appeared again in the fourth season of Storm Chasers, and also in an episode of another Discovery Channel series, Mythbusters
MythBusters
MythBusters is a science entertainment TV program created and produced by Beyond Television Productions for the Discovery Channel. The series is screened by numerous international broadcasters, including Discovery Channel Australia, Discovery Channel Latin America, Discovery Channel Canada, Quest...
, wherein both the TIV 2 and the SRV Dominator
SRV Dominator
The SRV Dominator is a vehicle used for storm chasing as featured on the Discovery Channel series Storm Chasers.-The Dominator:The Dominator was modified from a 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe that was used during the 2008 storm chasing season and debuted in the 2009 chase season. It was upgraded for the 2010...
vehicle operated by Reed Timmer
Reed Timmer
Reed Timmer is a meteorologist and professional storm chaser who stars in the American documentary reality television series Storm Chasers. He also starred in the documentary film Tornado Glory....
of TornadoVideos.Net were tested to determine their endurance to storm-force winds by being parked behind a Boeing 747
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced...
with the engines at full throttle. When tested at a wind speed of 160 MPH, the TIV 2 had the driver's door pulled open, though this was due to human error as Casey had forgotten to lock the door prior to the test. When tested again at 250 MPH (equivalent to an EF5 tornado), the TIV 2 suffered no ill effects other than the anchoring spikes being slightly bent whereas the Dominator ended up getting blown approximately 50 feet (15.2 m), though remained upright.
In 2011, a siren was added to the vehicle to allow the TIV 2 to act as a mobile warning system for civilians in the path of incoming tornadoes, after several instances earlier that year where the TIV team was unable to effectively warn locals of the imminent danger of the tornados they were tracking.