Coordinating Workshops for the NEES/E-Defense Collaborative Research Program in Earthquake Engineering (Phase 2)

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In recognition of their common threat from earthquakes and the similar approaches used to mitigate society's vulnerability to these threats, U.S. and Japanese researchers have a tradition of working together to accelerate progress in earthquake engineering research and to disseminate the knowledge learned. The U.S.-Japan Cooperative Earthquake Engineering Research Program utilizing Large-Scale Experimental Facilities was initiated in the 1970s by NSF and the Building Research Institute of the Japan Ministry of Construction. U.S. and Japanese researchers worked together on projects organized into seven phases involving: reinforced concrete buildings, steel braced frame buildings, ductile masonry buildings, prestressed concrete structural systems, composite and hybrid structures, smart systems, and urban disaster mitigation. With the development of the multi-site, shared-use experimental laboratories by NSF as part of the George E. Brown, Jr., Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES), and the large E-Defense shake table in Miki, Japan by the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED), NSF and Japan's Ministry for Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) initiated in 2005 the NEES/E-Defense Collaborative Earthquake Engineering Research Program. The first phase of this program, lasting through 2010, focused on critical high priority challenges in earthquake engineering related to bridges and steel buildings. This program is judged to be highly successful, resulting in innovative approaches to resist earthquake effects and producing high quality laboratory shake table data upon which design concepts could be validated and computational models for design and research could be verified and improved. A second phase of the NEES/E-Defense Collaborative Earthquake Engineering Research Program is currently being planned. This phase plans to focus on resilient and sustainable structures and communities. This focus is one of the main goals and strategic priorities of the 2009-2013 strategic plan developed for the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), available at http://www.nehrp.gov. The Phase 2 effort will strengthen the collaborative nature of research between U.S. and Japanese researchers and improve the seismic resilience of four important classes of structures. These structural classes will be finalized at a planning meeting to be held in Japan in September 2009. The first planning meeting for the second phase (held in January 2009) identified two ways for improving the implementation of the second phase. The participants recommended that "theme structures" be developed by the community to facilitate collaboration by different research teams, and that these culminate in a series of joint U.S.-Japan experiments on the E-Defense shake table. To strengthen and broaden collaboration, it was recommended that a more formal program of communication among interested researchers and practitioners be developed around regular workshops in the U.S. and Japan. The specific objectives of this activity are thus to (1) convene, in conjunction with Japanese counterparts, a series of regular workshops for sharing research results and ideas, fostering coordination and collaboration by research teams, and developing community priorities for theme structures and other details of the NEES/E-Defense research effort; (2) provide sustained technical support to maximize utility of the NEES/E-Defense workshops; (3) encourage participation in the NEES/E-Defense program by the NEES and NEHRP communities; and (4) facilitate researchers to develop and disseminate, through reports, special conference sessions, conference presentations, and journal papers, the overall findings of the NEES/E-Defense Collaborative Earthquake Engineering Research Program.Intellectual Merit: The research problems to be addressed by the NEES/E-Defense Collaborative Research Program are technically challenging and critical to enabling one of the main strategic priorities of the NEHRP Strategic Plan. The workshops will synergistically generate new ideas and innovative concepts leading to seismically resilient and sustainable engineered structures, and improve program outcomes.Broader Impacts: Workshop coordination broadens awareness of and participation in NEES/E-Defense activities by the NEES and NEHRP communities, with special emphasis on ensuring broad national participation by graduate students, early career researchers, engineering practitioners, and representatives from federal and state agencies.