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3
Networks of Facilities
The grand challenge problems described in Chapter 2 munity behavior to advance knowledge about resiliency. An
emerged during breakout sessions and were discussed in advanced observatory and mobile monitoring system could
more depth and refined during plenary sessions. In subse- provide data at urban scales to researchers before and after
quent discussions, workshop participants were asked to iden- earthquake events. Specifically, the community resilience ob-
tify general requirements for the experimental infrastructure servatory could offer researchers an opportunity to develop,
capabilities and cyberinfrastructure tools associated with test, and evaluate different methodologies for quantifying
addressing the grand challenge problems. The committee community resilience in different parts of the country; to
consolidated the results of these discussions into descriptions monitor and track recovery in areas that have experienced
of 14 distinct networks of facilities, which are presented in major catastrophes; and to ensure that benchmark data for
this chapter. measuring resilience can be standardized across the country.
A key part of the discussions involved the character- In turn, products from the community resilience observatory
istics of the network of facilities, both experimental and could benefit land use planners, emergency responders, and
cyberinfrastructure. Networking allows collaboration of state, regional, and local policy makers in their efforts to
geographically distributed researchers and team members better prepare for earthquakes. An instrumented city, in ad-
as they utilize multiple facilities. Collaboration tools include dition, could allow researchers to integrate the output from
real-time and asynchronous communication, access to data- many different sensors (from strain gauges to satellites) to
bases, simulations, and experiments. Advanced collaboration monitor the performance of a city during an actual disaster.
tools and social media could allow new types of interaction to The continued collection of data—both before and after an
develop and enhance the educational and outreach functions earthquake—could allow not only researchers but also com-
of the network. Workshop participants reiterated that data munity policy makers to generate critical benchmark datasets
storage, search, and mining are critical tools for the network. for use in quantifying the impact of risk reduction measures
Access to simulation and analysis software from petascale for a community.
computers to mobile apps could leverage a substantial tool- The experimental facilities suggested by participants
set in earthquake engineering and other applications, and encompass testing and monitoring over a wide range of
unleash developers to create new applications to meet the scales, loading regimes, boundary conditions, and rates on
demands of the Grand Challenges. Real-time communication laboratory and field (in situ) specimens that would be needed
with Quality-of-Service guarantees could allow advances in to address the grand challenge problems identified during
hybrid simulation and advanced testing methods. Partici- the workshop. At the material scale, facilities can generate
pants envisioned that the user communities for the facilities data about the properties and behavior of sustainable mate-
would encompass a wide range of researchers, practitioners, rial. At the full scale, facilities can provide urgently needed
planners, and other officials, and that the data, models, and information about the performance of complete structures,
information sources would be available and documented for including the effects of soil and non-structural components.
the general community. The interlinking of multiple sites through methods such as
In discussing the networks of facilities, participants hybrid simulation would allow experiments of the “whole”
described the characteristics of a unique community re- to be greater than experiments on the “parts.” Participants
silience observatory and an “instrumented city” testbed suggested that cyberinfrastructure tools are essential for cap-
that would create urban-scale laboratories without walls turing, analyzing, and visualizing experiments and for sup-
to integrate experiments, simulations, and models of com- porting the advanced simulations identified in the Grand
21
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22 GRAND CHALLENGES IN EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING RESEARCH
TABLE 3.1 Linkages Between Facilities and the Five Overarching Grand Challenges.
Community
Resilience Decision
Framework Making Simulation Mitigation Design Tools
√ √ √ √
Community Resilience Observatory
√ √ √ √
Instrumented City
√ √ √ √ √
Earthquake Engineering Simulation Center
√ √ √ √ √
Earthquake Engineering Data Synthesis Center
√ √ √ √
Earth Observation
√ √ √
Rapid Monitoring Facility
√ √ √ √
Sustainable Materials Facility
√ √ √ √
Networked Geotechnical Centrifuges
√ √ √ √ √
SSI Shaking Table
√ √ √ √ √
Large-Scale Shaking Table
√ √ √ √ √
Tsunami Wave Simulator
√ √ √ √
Advanced Structural Subsystems Characterization Facility
√ √ √ √
Non-Structural, Multi-Axis Testing Facility
√ √ √ √
Mobile Facility for In Situ Structural Testing
Challenges. A simulation center and data synthesis center use the above data in an open resource framework, would be
were identified as separate but interlinked facilities because especially important aspects of this data collection.
of their very different services and capabilities. Several participants noted that the concept of a resil-
Table 3.1 shows how the facilities discussed in this ience observatory is not new. In 2008, the National Science
chapter could address the five overarching Grand Challenges Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Geological Survey sup-
described in Chapter 2. As one example from the table, the ported a workshop that brought together leading researchers
rapid monitoring facility addresses problems described in from the disaster research community to explore the cre -
the Community Resilience Framework, Decision Making, ation of a new NSF observatory focused on resiliency and
and Simulation Grand Challenges. The ordering of the facili- vulnerability. Such an observatory would address obstacles
ties does not indicate prioritization. by “(1) supporting development of long-term longitudinal
datasets; (2) investing in the development of data col-
lection protocols to ensure comparable measurement in
COMMUNITY RESILIENCE OBSERVATORY
multiple socio-political environmental settings and across
The community resilience observatory, as envisioned by m ultiple hazards; (3) building on and complementing
participants in the “community resilience” breakout group, existing data collection efforts and activities in the public
would encompass interlinked facilities that function as a and private sectors; and (4) enhancing the sharing of data
laboratory without walls. It could integrate experimental throughout research and practice communities” (Peacock
testing and simulations with a holistic understanding of et al., 2008).
communities, stakeholders, decisions, and motivations. The The observatory concept discussed during this present
observatory could support basic research on interdependen- workshop is similar to that of the 2008 workshop. Partici-
cies among systems, the multiple dimensions of resilience, pants described this observatory as a virtual clearinghouse
and analytic tools for resilience measurement that take those for a broad range of data that could be used to monitor,
interdependencies. It could host evolving community data measure, and evaluate the resilience of a community. As
and coordinating models that use that data to produce knowl- discussed at the workshop, these data would be housed
edge about resilience. Participants noted that comprehensive in different laboratories across the country and would be
datasets from past earthquakes that quantify both the direct accessible by all researchers interested in studying com-
and indirect impacts of these events, empirical indicators munity resilience. The observatory was also seen as a series
(e.g., socioeconomic information on communities) that of testbeds to study post-earthquake recovery in different
measure the resilience or sustainability of communities from parts of the country. By examining recovery in different re-
past disasters, and tools and platforms (software or social gions, researchers could begin to evaluate the scalability of
networking solutions) that allow researchers to access and methodologies and models designed to measure community
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23
NETWORKS OF FACILITIES
performance. Finally, the observatory could be used to link (below), and it could leverage high-performance computing
researchers from various disciplines in order to study com- services available through national networks. System and
munity resilience from a holistic perspective. By taking part application development would be an essential part of such
in a virtual network from different parts of the country, re- a service, to create the core simulation services and inter-
searchers could better study the physical and socioeconomic faces needed to support further advances in the earthquake
factors that affect community resilience. engineering community.
INSTRUMENTED CITY EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING DATA SYNTHESIS
CENTER
An instrumented testbed in a high-risk, urban environ-
ment could provide invaluable data about a community’s A n earthquake engineering data synthesis center,
resilience to earthquakes. New instrumentation from strain as envisioned by participants across multiple breakout
gauges to satellites could monitor and measure at multiple groups, would offer the research community a large-scale
orders of scale. For complex lifeline systems—including database system for ingesting data sources from a variety
transportation networks—participants emphasized a need of sensor types including imaging, remote sensing, video,
for underground sensing and new monitoring devices that and information management systems (e.g., BIM, GIS).
are wireless, self-locating, and self-placing. Leveraging Such a center could support the execution of models over
other uses of lasers, imaging, satellites, and networks such that data to provide curated reference data, inferred derived
as smart grids could contribute to collecting data in a region. information, simulations of normal and disaster scenarios
As such, an instrumented testbed would allow capturing the and mitigation and response, and community services sup-
response of complete, interconnected infrastructure systems porting data access and decision support. The center could
and their interactions with urban systems. A constellation assume federation and harvesting of data as a significant
of sensors could be connected to a central data repository mechanism and focus on integrated, derived, and curated
(e.g., the Earthquake Engineering Sensor Data Synthesis data products, and also offer advanced search and retrieval
Center). As envisioned by workshop participants, this re- based on meta-data and action queries on data. Such a rich
pository would require new technologies with respect to data data source could help researchers understand the response
management, communication, data fusion, data processing of complete infrastructure systems in a region at multiple
and dissemination, and data sharing. The instrumented city scales through networking with sensor galaxies and all
could allow unprecedented research on studying decision- experimental and field facilities. The center could provide
making processes for development and calibration of com - well-defined abstractions that would empower users to
prehensive community models. It could be a specific site or develop tools for data analysis and monitoring to support
region where many of the sensor systems described above statistical and inferential discovery.
are already in place or could be installed as part of other
programs.
EARTH OBSERVATION
Many workshop participants expressed a need for in-
EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING SIMULATION CENTER
tegrated continuous and multi-sensor (e.g., aerial, satellite,
Massively parallel computers, fast memory access, and unmanned aerial vehicle) observations of communities at
large storage in an earthquake engineering simulation center various scales (e.g., buildings, neighborhoods, regions, and
could enable high-performance computing computations for countries) for characterizing the physical attributes of com-
large-scale modeling and simulation. Such a center could munities and monitoring the effects of earthquakes (e.g.,
bring together earthquake engineering researchers with ex- damage assessment and recovery). These earth observation
perts in algorithm development, computational and statistical systems could offer optical as well as dimensional views
methods, and high-end computational and cloud develop- (3-D using radar and LiDAR [light detection and ranging]
ment methodologies to enable transformative advances in sensors) of cities that would quantify attributes of cities
simulation. Such a center could include theory-based simu- including location, type, and density of buildings; location
lation and multi-scale, multi-component modeling, as well of critical lifeline systems; and natural attributes that could
as data-intensive, inverse, and hybrids of these paradigms. contribute to the vulnerability of an area (e.g., low-lying
An interactive visualization capability could be networked coastal areas subject to tsunami effects). Many of these
and distributed for comparing simulations and experimental networks and systems are already in place, and a number of
data. Participants noted that an important requirement is the participants noted that existing resources could be leveraged
capability for regional simulations including integrated visu- to accomplish the above objectives. To develop a holistic
alization and interactive decision making. Such a simulation solution for quantifying the vulnerability and resilience of
center could have 100 GB bandwidth network connectivity large cities, many participants stressed the importance of
with the Earthquake Engineering Data Synthesis Center including a remote sensing component.
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24 GRAND CHALLENGES IN EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING RESEARCH
RAPID MONITORING FACILITY advance knowledge of this crucial component of earthquake
engineering. A large-scale testing system could facilitate
Participants noted that a rapid monitoring facility
studying of the interaction of geotechnical conditions for
could provide the earthquake engineering community with
both infrastructure components as well as building systems.
a suite of highly portable sensing and data acquisition tools
Self-organizing wireless sensors, as well as other new types
that could be rapidly deployed to structures, geo-facilities,
of sensing strategies specific to SSI, could enable high -
and lifelines to monitor their stability after seismic events.
resolution assessment of progression of damage in SSI sys-
Included in the deployable facility could be robotic systems
tems and the development of new strategies for more robust
that would be capable of sensor placement in partially col-
design of structures and infrastructure systems. Hybrid
lapsed structures and in lifeline systems with tight, difficult-
simulation could also provide the realistic, time-dependent
to-reach locations. Sensor arrays deployed into critical
loading on specimens that is important for accurate assess-
infrastructure systems could provide a wealth of response
ment of soil-structure interaction.
data during aftershocks, providing valuable data for future
modeling.
LARGE-SCALE SHAKING TABLE
SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS FACILITY A large-scale shake table facility capable of full-scale
structural testing was viewed by a number of workshop par-
There is an emerging range of new, sustainable, highly
ticipants as being important for addressing the Grand Chal-
resilient materials that offer opportunities to change the
lenges. They noted that there are significant knowledge gaps
way infrastructure is designed and constructed. Many of
about structures that are damaged or partially collapsed and
these high-performance materials are being developed for
the modes of failure. Testing complete structures or full-scale
the aerospace and mechanical industries, and are not cur-
subsystems in multiple directions would allow improved
rently appropriate for adoption by the construction industry
understanding of the response of actual construction and the
(because of very high prices and limited availability). Par-
contributions of lateral and gravity load-resisting systems
ticipants noted that there is a significant opportunity to part -
and non-structural systems. Such a facility could provide
ner with material science facilities to develop and test new
fundamental knowledge for understanding the complete sys-
construction-grade materials, which might be self-healing,
tem behavior, validating post-earthquake evaluation methods
capable of energy capture, or ultra high strength, and to
for damaged structures. This knowledge in turn could help
understand the use of sustainable materials for earthquake
determine which structures are safe to occupy and which
engineering applications. Although existing materials facili-
ones need to be demolished. As envisioned, this facility
ties might be appropriate for some of this development, it is
would require multifaceted testing capabilities, including hy-
likely that augmented or new facilities would also be needed
brid methods, with the capacity to test to collapse. Workshop
to test these materials under the conditions they are likely
participants discussed the need for a study about whether it
to experience when used in construction, accounting for the
is most effective to construct a new full-scale shaking table
influence of aging and degradation.
or develop international partnerships, such as a partnership
with E-Defense in Japan.
NETWORKED GEOTECHNICAL CENTRIFUGES
TSUNAMI WAVE SIMULATOR
Multiple networked geotechnical centrifuges, each
including innovative capabilities for robotic manipulation
T he tsunami wave simulator described by several
and actuation within the centrifuge container during the
workshop participants would be a revolutionary new facility
experiment, could allow new types of experimental model-
that combines a tsunami wave basin with the capability to
ing of landslides (including submarine), liquefaction, and
shake the ground to simulate liquefaction and subsidence.
tsunamis. Unique hybrid simulations would be possible
Participants noted that fundamental knowledge about large-
through networked facilities, thus enabling a more detailed
scale coupling between soil-structure and fluid interaction
assessment of interaction effects between structures and
is lacking, and a combined tsunami and liquefaction wave
foundation systems and large-scale integrated geotechnical
tank could provide researchers with a better understanding
failures.
of foundation weakening, scouring, and structural failure,
which in turn would lead to improved protection for coastal
SSI SHAKING TABLE communities. The wave simulator basin would be on the
order of at least 150 feet wide by 250 feet long, with en-
A large-scale, dynamic shaking table designed for soil-
hanced absorption boundary conditions capable of tsunami
structure interaction (SSI) experiments, as envisioned by
generation, propagation, and reproduction of local effects on
participants in the “design of infrastructure” group, would
coastal structures.
enable a significant throughput of SSI experiments to help
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25
NETWORKS OF FACILITIES
ADVANCED STRUCTURAL SUBSYSTEMS infrastructure. Such a facility would need to deliver very high
CHARACTERIZATION FACILITY displacements, velocities, and accelerations so that it could
simulate the behavior of floors at any point within a building;
Many participants noted that to enable the develop -
however, it may not need to have a very high payload capac-
ment of more accurate structural models, a networked set of
ity because most non-structural items within buildings are
equipment that replicates the effects of corrosion, acceler-
relatively light. Such a facility could permit the development
ated aging, and fatigue is needed for the characterization of
of complete building models, including the building content,
subsystems, components, and materials. Such a facility could
and also the development of more robust non-structural ele-
have the capability for multi-axial loading, high-temperature
ments and equipment that would be significantly less likely
testing, and high pressures. It would need to be able to test
to be damaged in an earthquake.
full-sized or close-to-full-scale subsystems and components
under fully realistic boundary and loading conditions, includ-
MOBILE FACILITY FOR IN SITU STRUCTURAL
ing rate effects to avoid issues with scaling, and would need
TESTING
to be supported by a comprehensive set of high-performance
instrumentation. Such a facility could enable the develop-
A mobile facility for in situ structural testing, as de-
ment of high-fidelity physics-based models for incorporation
scribed by participants in the “design of infrastructure”
into simulations of complete structures. It could also enable
group, could be equipped with a suite of highly portable
the characterization of the full lifetime performance and
testing equipment including shakers, actuators, sensors, and
sustainability of structural elements and materials and allow
high-resolution data acquisition systems that could be used
the development of appropriate retrofit and strengthening
to test structures, lifelines, or geotechnical systems in place.
techniques for existing aging infrastructure.
Examples include modal shakers to introduce dynamic loads
on structures, bridges, and soil systems. Additional capabil-
NON-STRUCTURAL, MULTI-AXIS TESTING FACILITY ity could include large-capacity broadband dynamic seismic
wave sources coupled with improved sensing capabilities
A significant proportion of the losses following an
to allow the high-resolution subsurface characterization es-
earthquake are the result of indirect damage to the contents
sential for regional modeling. Hydraulic actuators capable
of buildings, rather than damage to the structural frame.
of in situ lateral loading could provide an experimental
A number of participants noted that the requirements of
capability of testing structures. Intentional and repeatable
the current seismic qualification codes cannot be fully met
dynamic loading of buildings, bridges, and other structural
with existing facilities,1 highlighting the need for a high-
systems could allow systems to be dynamically characterized
performance multi-axis facility with the frequency range and
for improved modeling capabilities. Dynamic excitation of
levels of motion necessary to investigate and characterize the
geotechnical systems could improve understanding and the
performance of non-structural elements (e.g., partitions) and
modeling of liquefiable soils.
other content (e.g., shelving, IT equipment, lighting, electri-
cal and mechanical equipment) within a building or other
1 For example, IEEE Standard 693-1997, which contains recommended
practices for seismic design of substations, cannot be met without significant
filtering of the low-frequency content of the signal (Takhirov et al., 2005).
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