Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure: Post-Disaster, Rapid Response Research (RAPID) Facility

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The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) will be supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a distributed, multi-user national facility that will provide the natural hazards research community with access to research infrastructure that will include earthquake and wind engineering experimental facilities, cyberinfrastructure, computational modeling and simulation tools, and research data, as well as education and community outreach activities. NHERI will be comprised of separate awards for a Network Coordination Office (NCO), Cyberinfrastructure, Computational Modeling and Simulation Center, and Experimental Facilities (EFs), including a post-disaster, rapid response research (RAPID) facility. Awards made for NHERI will contribute to NSF's role in the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) and the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program. NHERI continues NSF's emphasis on earthquake engineering research infrastructure previously supported under the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation as part of NEHRP, but now broadens that support to include wind engineering research infrastructure. NHERI has the broad goal of supporting research that will improve the resilience and sustainability of civil infrastructure, such as buildings and other surface and underground structures, levees, and critical lifelines, against the natural hazards of earthquakes and windstorms, in order to reduce loss of life, damage, and economic loss. Information about NHERI resources is available at the DesignSafe-ci.org web portal. NHERI EFs will provide access to their experimental resources, user services, and data management infrastructure for NSF-supported research and education awards. As part of the NHERI EF portfolio, this award will support the NHERI RAPID facility, headquartered at the University of Washington. The scientific goal of the RAPID facility is to support natural hazard researchers to conduct next generation RAPID research through reliable acquisition and community sharing of high-quality, post-disaster data sets that will enable characterization of civil infrastructure performance under natural hazard loads, evaluation of the effectiveness of current and previous design methodologies, calibration of computational models used to predict civil infrastructure component and system response to natural hazards, and development of solutions for resilient communities. In support of this goal, this facility will provide the following resources: (1) a portfolio of state-of-the-art data collection tools (including geomatics technologies; image capture and laser scanning equipment; seismological, wind, and inundation instruments; and unmanned aircraft systems, among others); (2) new software tools to aid in data collection and processing; (3) education, outreach, and training services; (4) advisory services to assist reconnaissance teams with the planning of safe and successful field missions for data collection; and (5) a headquarters that includes a 3D mini Computer Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE) for viewing and preliminary analysis of the various forms of image data collected during field campaigns. As a community resource, the facility will: (1) support acquisition of an unprecedented amount of perishable, post-disaster, high-quality, open data by the natural hazards community; (2) provide learning and training opportunities in post-disaster reconnaissance; (3) promote public engagement with science and technology through a citizen science data collection initiative; and (4) develop new and strengthen existing international research partnerships by establishing collaborations with foreign organizations during global deployments. This facility will also host students as part of the NCO's Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.