Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure: Computational Modeling and Simulation Center 2021-2025

自然灾害工程研究基础设施(NHERI)由国家科学基金会(NSF)支持，作为一个分布式、多用户的国家设施，向自然灾害工程研究社区提供访问研究基础设施的机会，这些基础设施包括地震和风力工程实验设施、网络基础设施(CI)、计算建模和模拟工具、高性能计算资源和研究数据，以及教育和社区推广活动。NHERI最初由计划征集NSF 14-605和NSF 15-598提供资金，自2015年以来一直通过网络协调办公室、CI、计算建模和仿真中心(SimCenter)和实验设施(包括灾后快速反应研究设施)的单独但协调的五年研究基础设施奖运行。该奖项将在2021年10月1日至2025年9月30日期间续订加州大学伯克利分校NHERI的SimCenter部分，以及它的十个合作机构：佐治亚州立大学、约翰·霍普金斯大学、斯坦福大学、加州大学洛杉矶分校、加州大学圣地亚哥分校、特拉华大学、密歇根大学、圣母大学、南加州大学和华盛顿大学。SimCenter的使命是为自然灾害工程研究提供下一代计算建模和模拟软件工具、用户支持和教育材料，以模拟地震和风暴等自然灾害对建筑物、交通和生命线系统以及社区的影响。SimCenter的软件开发是由自然灾害工程的三大挑战推动的，这三个挑战涉及(1)量化地震、飓风和其他灾害的破坏特征；(2)评估暴露在灾害中的民用基础设施和社区的物理和社会脆弱性；以及(3)创造技术和工程工具，为国家设计、建造、改造和运营具有多种灾害弹性和可持续的基础设施。模拟中心将通过开发可扩展的软件组件库和计算工作流来应对这些挑战，以促进多学科研究合作，以前所未有的规模、复杂性和分辨率模拟自然灾害对社区的影响。教育和外展活动，包括针对访问教师、博士后学者和学生的常驻研究员计划；针对开发人员以及现有和潜在用户的两年一次的会议；研讨会；研讨会；软件培训训练营；社区参与的工作组；以及用户支持，将使多样化和协作性的劳动力队伍能够应对挑战，为规划、设计和部署缓解战略以创建更具弹性的社区的决策提供信息。这一奖项将有助于国家科学基金会在国家减少地震灾害计划(NEHRP)和国家减少风灾影响计划(NWIRP)中的作用。SimCenter的软件框架是一个健壮的、开源的、可扩展的、基于云的系统，它将利用NHERI的DesignSafe CI Web门户(https://www.DesignSafe-ci.org).)提供的高性能计算和数据管理工具模拟中心的计算工具将设计成从危险的源头到对其影响和后果的多个尺度的评估，例如，从飓风对个别建筑物的损坏和修复的详细评估到对社区恢复的区域影响。该软件将能够对地震、风力和水动力作用进行建模，模拟对这些作用的线性和非线性动态响应，评估性能，并分析网络。该软件框架将通过先进的工作流程管理工具、机器学习辅助的建模和库存开发工具、替代模型开发和校准的统计优化工具以及不确定性量化方法，在整个建模和模拟过程中协助分析。区域自然灾害情景的试验台研究将通过确定关键研究需求和整合所需工具来推动发展。将使用测试数据、改进的数值模拟和用户体验来建立高分辨率计算模型的技能和信心。桌面应用程序界面将提供方便的用户控制，以创建将基础软件组件和数据库相结合的计算工作流。这些软件工具将实现应用程序的无与伦比的集成和互操作性，使多学科研究团队能够使用可用的最佳HPC协作应对三大挑战。有关模拟中心研究和学习工具的信息可在国家医疗保险研究所门户网站的模拟中心页面上获得(https://simcenter.designsafe-ci.org).This奖反映了国家科学基金会的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a distributed, multi-user national facility to provide the natural hazards engineering research community with access to research infrastructure that includes earthquake and wind engineering experimental facilities, cyberinfrastructure (CI), computational modeling and simulation tools, high performance computing resources, and research data, as well as education and community outreach activities. Originally funded under program solicitations NSF 14-605 and NSF 15-598, NHERI has operated since 2015 through separate, but coordinated, five-year research infrastructure awards for a Network Coordination Office, CI, Computational Modeling and Simulation Center (SimCenter), and Experimental Facilities, including a post-disaster, rapid response research facility. This award will renew the SimCenter component of NHERI at the University of California, Berkeley, from October 1, 2021, to September 30, 2025, along with its ten partner institutions: Georgia State University, Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, University of California at Los Angeles, University of California at San Diego, University of Delaware, University of Michigan, University of Notre Dame, University of Southern California, and University of Washington. The SimCenter’s mission is to provide next generation computational modeling and simulation software tools, user support, and educational materials for natural hazards engineering research to simulate the impact of natural hazards, such as earthquakes and windstorms, on buildings, transportation and lifeline systems, and communities. The SimCenter’s software development is motivated by three grand challenges for natural hazards engineering that entail (1) quantifying the damaging characteristics of earthquakes, hurricanes, and other hazards; (2) assessing the physical and social vulnerabilities of civil infrastructure and communities exposed to hazards; and (3) creating technologies and engineering tools to design, construct, retrofit, and operate a multi-hazard resilient and sustainable infrastructure for the nation. The SimCenter will address these challenges through the development of an extensible library of software components and computational workflows that foster multi-disciplinary research collaboration to simulate the impact of natural hazards on communities with unprecedented scale, complexity, and resolution. Education and outreach activities, including a researcher in residence program for visiting faculty, post doctoral scholars, and students; biennial meetings for developers and current and potential users; seminars; workshops; software training bootcamps; community-engaged working groups; and user support, will empower a diverse and collaborative workforce to tackle challenges that can inform decision making on planning, design, and deployment of mitigation strategies to create more resilient communities. This award will contribute to NSF's role in the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) and the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program (NWIRP).The SimCenter’s software framework is a robust, open-source, extensible, and cloud-based system that will utilize the high-performance computing (HPC) and data management tools provided by NHERI’s DesignSafe CI web portal (https://www.DesignSafe-ci.org). The SimCenter’s computational tools will be designed to integrate modeling and simulation from the source of a hazard through to assessment of its impact and consequences across multiple scales, e.g., from detailed assessment of damage and repair of individual buildings due to a hurricane to regional impacts on recovery of communities. The software will enable modeling of seismic, wind, and hydrodynamic actions, simulating linear and nonlinear dynamic response to these actions, assessing performance, and analyzing networks. The software framework will aid analysis throughout the modeling and simulation process with advanced tools for workflow management, machine-learning-assisted tools for modeling and inventory development, statistical optimization tools for surrogate model development and calibration, and methods for uncertainty quantification. Testbed studies of regional natural hazard scenarios will drive development by identifying key research needs and integrating needed tools. Test data, refined numerical simulations, and user experiences will be used to build skills and confidence in high-resolution computational models. Desktop application interfaces will provide convenient user control to create computational workflows that combine underlying software components and databases. The software tools will enable unparalleled integration and interoperability of applications empowering multi-disciplinary research teams to collaboratively address the three grand challenges using the best HPC available. Information about the SimCenter research and learning tools is available on the SimCenter page on the NHERI web portal (https://simcenter.designsafe-ci.org).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.