Earthquake Simulation Network Rattles from Coast to Coast
A new national web of research labs for studying materials and assemblies under complex seismic loading is beginning to revolutionize earthquake engineering research and deliver on sophisticated promises. The George E. Brown Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES), launched in late 2004, coordinates and administers National Science Foundation research grants. It has 15 “equipment sites” at universities around the country and a supercomputer center and management center at the University of California at San Diego. The “network” comes into play with NEES’s next-generation Internet data links that tie the labs’ monitoring systems together. That link lets researchers grab live data of tests in simulated earthquakes at any one lab and share the “quake” in real time with others. The network can turn the scattered facilities into one big super-laboratory capable of modeling complex interactions.
Some large-scale testing tools at the equipment sites are designed to mechanically simulate the forces of quakes and analyze the response of sensor-studded test objects. Much of the equipment is specialized for particular purposes and tests are often underwritten by engineering and design companies with ideas or products to evaluate.