Communications of the ACM
CLA Center Gets $4.5 Million For Role in National Earthquake Simulation Network
"Today, there is a lot more high-quality experimental work being done. There's been a shift in culture as well," says UCLA professor of civil and environmental engineering Jonathan Stewart.
Credit: UCLA
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a five-year, $105 million grant to Purdue University to lead a national earthquake simulation project. NSF created the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) project to enable researchers to study the impact of earthquakes and tsunamis. The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which will receive $4.5 million of the grant money, is one of 14 sites that participates in NEES. All of the sites use NEES earthquake simulation tools and make their data available worldwide.
"Today, there is a lot more high-quality experimental work being done," says UCLA professor Jonathan Stewart. "There's been a shift in culture as well. Resources and information are shared freely among the community, and that wasn't always the case."
Stewart is working on the NEES Grand Challenge Project, which studies methods for finding non-ductile concrete buildings in Los Angeles, which are particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because the entire building could collapse if part of its structure is compromised. The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services believes the state has more than 40,000 non-ductile concrete buildings.
Another UCLA project studies levees at the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. They are vital not only for providing drinking water to Californians, but for protecting people and property on islands in the Bay Area. Stewart and UCLA professor Scott Brandenberg plan to construct a levee and use NEES tools to deform it in order to evaluate its seismic risk.
From UCLA News
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