Preventing Earthquake Disasters




Preface

BACKGROUND

The George E. Brown, Jr., Network for Earthquake Engineering Simu-

lation (NEES) is a collaboratory for integrated experimentation, computation,

theory, databases, and model-based simulation in earthquake engineering

research and education intended to improve the seismic design and

performance of the U.S. civil and mechanical infrastructure. Administered

by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NEES is mandated to be

operational by September 30, 2004.

The NEES collaboratory will include 16 geographically distributed,

shared-use, next-generation earthquake engineering experimental research

equipment installations, with teleobservation and teleoperation capabilities

networked through the Internet. (Appendix A in this report provides

information about the equipment installations.) In addition to providing

access for telepresence at the NEES equipment sites, the network

will use cutting-edge tools to link high-performance computational and

data-storage facilities, including a curated repository for experimental

and analytical earthquake engineering data. The network will also provide

distributed physical and numerical simulation capabilities and resources

for the visualization of experimental and computational data. Through

NEES, the earthquake engineering community will use advanced experimental

capabilities to test and validate analytical and computerized

numerical models that are more complex and comprehensive than ever.


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