The George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) was created by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

(NSF) to improve infrastructure design and construction practices to prevent or minimize damage during an earthquake or tsunami. Its headquarters were at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and ...

West Lafayette, Indiana West Lafayette () is a city in Wabash Township, Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, about northwest of the state capital of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. West Lafayette is directly across the Wabash River from its sister cit ...

as part of cooperative agreement #CMMI-0927178, and it ran from 2009 till 2014. The mission of NEES is to accelerate improvements in seismic design and performance by serving as a collaboratory for discovery and innovation.

Description

The NEES network features 14 geographically distributed, shared-use laboratories that support several types of experimental work: geotechnical centrifuge research, shake table tests, large-scale structural testing, tsunami wave basin experiments, and field site research. Participating universities include:

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

;

Lehigh University Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epi ...

;

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering ...

;

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

;

University at Buffalo, SUNY The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...

;

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

;

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

;

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

;

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is ...

;

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

;

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Un ...

;

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

;

University of Nevada, Reno The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada, the University of Nevada, or UNR) is a public land-grant research university in Reno, Nevada. It is the state's flagship public university and primary land grant institution. It was founded on October 12 ...

; and the

University of Texas, Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. The equipment sites (labs) and a central data repository are connected to the global earthquake engineering community via the NEEShub, which is powered by the

HUBzero HUBzero is an open source software platform for building websites that support scientific activities. History HUBzero was created by researchers at Purdue University in conjunction with the NSF-sponsored Network for Computational Nanotechnology. ...

software developed at

specifically to help the scientific community share resources and collaborate. The cyberinfrastructure, connected via Internet2, provides interactive simulation tools, a simulation tool development area, a curated central data repository, user-developed databases,Browning, J., Pujol, S., Eigenmann R., and Ramirez, J. (2013). NEEShub Databases-Quick access to concrete data, ''Concrete International'', ACI, 35(4), pp. 55–60 animated presentations, user support, telepresence, mechanism for uploading and sharing resources and statistics about users, and usage patterns. This allows researchers to: securely store, organize and share data within a standardized framework in a central location, remotely observe and participate in experiments through the use of synchronized real-time data and video, collaborate with colleagues to facilitate the planning, performance, analysis, and publication of research experiments and conduct computational and hybrid simulations that may combine the results of multiple distributed experiments and link physical experiments with computer simulations to enable the investigation of overall system performance. The cyberinfrastructure supports analytical simulations using the

OpenSees OpenSees (the Open System for Earthquake engineering, Earthquake Engineering Simulation) is an object-oriented software framework created during the National Science Foundation-sponsored era (1997-2007) of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Resear ...

software. These resources jointly provide the means for collaboration and discovery to improve the seismic design and performance of civil and mechanical infrastructure systems.

Cyberinfrastructure

Cyberinfrastructure United States federal research funders use the term cyberinfrastructure to describe research environments that support advanced data acquisition, data storage, data management, data integration, data mining, data visualization and other computing ...

is an

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

based on

computer networks A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are m ...

and application-specific software, tools, and data repositories that support research in a particular discipline. The term "cyberinfrastructure" was coined by the

Projects

NEES Research covers a wide range of topics including performance of existing and new construction, energy dissipation and base isolation systems, innovative materials, lifeline systems such as pipelines, piping, and bridges, and nonstructural systems such a ceilings and cladding. Researchers are also investigation soil remediation technologies for liquefiable soils, and collecting information about tsunami impacts and building performance after recent earthquakes. The permanently instrumented field sites operated by NEES@UCSB support field observations of ground motions, ground deformations, pore pressure response, and soil-foundation-structure interaction.Steidl, J., Nigbor, R.L., and Youd, T. L. (2008). Observations of Insitu Soil Behavior and Soil-Foundation-Structure-Interaction Infrastructure at the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES)Permanently Instrumented Field Sites, ''14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering'', Beijing, http://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article/14_S16-01-014.PDF The NEESwood projectNSF
Standing Strong, The 2009 NEESwood Capstone Test, https://www.nsf.gov/news/newsmedia/neeswood/. investigated the design of low and mid-rise wood-frame construction in seismic regions. The NEES@UCLA mobile field laboratory, consisting of large mobile shakers, field-deployable monitoring instrumentation systems, was utilized to collect forced and ambient vibration data from a four-story reinforced concrete (RC) building damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Shake table tests on pipe systems anchored in a full-scale, seven-story building performed on the Large High-Performance Outdoor Shake Table at NEES@UCSD investigated seismic design methods for anchors fastening nonstructural components.

Education, outreach, and training

The NEES collaboratory includes educational programs to meet learning goals and technology transfer for various stakeholders. Programs include a geographically distributed Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program,Anagnos, T. Lyman-Holt, A., & Brophy, S. (2012). WIP: Linking a Geographically Distributed REU Program with Networking and Collaboration Tools, ''119th ASEE Annual Conference'', San Antonio, TX http://www.asee.org/public/conferences/8/papers/5585/view museum exhibits, an ambassador program, curriculum modules,Doyle, K., Van Den Einde, L., French, C. W., Tremayne, H. A., & Brophy, S. P. (2013). "Hands-On" experiential tools to introduce math, science and engineering concepts to K-16 students (Research to Practice),''120th ASEE Conference and Exposition'', Atlanta, GA, http://www.asee.org/public/conferences/20/papers/7191/viewLyman-Holt, A. L. & Robichaux, L. C. (2013). Waves of Engineering: Using a mini-wave flume to foster engineering literacy,''120th ASEE Conference and Exposition'', Atlanta, GA, http://www.asee.org/public/conferences/20/papers/6680/view and a Research to Practic
webinar
series aimed at informing practicing engineers of the outcomes of NEES research. Companion cyberinfrastructure provides a framework for helping educators to enrich their curriculum with these resources. NEESacademy,Brophy, S., Lambert, J., & Anagnos, T. (2011, October). Work in progress—NEESacademy as a cyber-enabled learning experiences for K-16 earthquake engineering and science education. In ''Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)'', 2011 (pp. T1D-1). IEEE. {{doi, 10.1109/FIE.2011.6143105
portal
within NEEShub, is designed to support effective organization, assessment, implementation, and dissemination of learning experiences related to earthquake science and engineering. One source of content is the education and outreach products developed by NEES researchers, but anyone can contribute resources.

Soil liquefaction research

The George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (

NEES Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (14 February 1776 – 16 March 1858) was a prolific German botanist, physician, zoologist, and natural philosopher. He was a contemporary of Goethe and was born within the lifetime of Linnaeus. He d ...

) hosts two geotechnical centrifuges for studying soil behavior. The NEES centrifuge at University of California Davis has radius of 9.1 m (to bucket floor), maximum payload mass of 4500 kg, and available bucket area of 4.0 m2.UC Davis NEES Center for Geotechnical Modeling http://nees.ucdavis.edu/centrifuge.php The centrifuge is capable of producing 75g's of centrifugal acceleration at its effective radius of 8.5 m. The centrifuge capacity in terms of the maximum acceleration multiplied by the maximum payload is 53 g x 4500 kg = 240 g-tonnes. The NEES centrifuge at the Center for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (CEES) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has a nominal radius, 2.7 m, which is the distance between the center of payload and the centrifuge axis. The space available for the payload is a depth of 1,000 mm, width of 1,000 mm, height of 800 mm, and a maximum height of 1,200 mm. The performance envelope is 160 g, 1.5 tons, and 150 g-tons (product of payload weight times g).Center for Earthquake Engineering Simulation https://www.nees.rpi.edu/equipment/centrifuge/

References

External links

NEES Official WebsiteNEEScomm IT informational webpageNEES YouTube ChannelNational Science FoundationMUST-SIM University of IllinoisNEES at Cornell UniversityNEES at Lehigh UniversityNEES at Oregon State UniversityNEES at Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteNEES at University at Buffalo, SUNYNEES at NEES University of California, BerkeleyNEES at University of California, DavisNEES at University of California, Los AngelesNEES at University of California, San DiegoNEES at University of California, Santa BarbaraNEES at University of MinnesotaNEES at University of Nevada, RenoNEES at University of Texas, Austin
E-Science Cyberinfrastructure Earthquake engineering