If something “involves firing a wooden timber at a structure using an air cannon,” I can’t help but be interested. You too, obviously! I guess everyone likes to see something getting (safely) smashed once and a while.

It looks like DuPont has opened a testing center to do just that:

The multi-million dollar facility will allow the company to test different materials for its DuPont StormRoom made with its Kevlar product. DuPont also will use the site to develop new technologies that will further help protect people and property during dangerous storms.

The DuPont StormRoom with Kevlar is designed to withstand the impact of a 2′ x 4′ timber propelled at 100 mph—the speed at which the timber would travel in the strongest tornado, which generates wind gusts of up to 250 mph. The StormRoom also is crush-resistant and engineered to support a uniformly distributed weight of more than 70,000 pounds, the weight of a fully loaded tractor trailer.