Next Generation Attenuation for CENA (NGA-East)
Request for Proposals for
Validation of Finite Fault Simulations
RFP Issued: August 18, 2010
Deadline to submit proposals: September 8, 2010
Simulations Working Group
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With the sponsorship of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), US Department of Energy (DOE) and US Geological Survey (USGS), the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) is coordinating a comprehensive multidisciplinary program to develop Next Generation Attenuation Relationships for the Central and Eastern North-America (NGA-East).
NGA-East is treated as a SSHAC (Senior Seismic Hazard Analysis Committee) Level 3 program; see, e.g., NUREG/CR-6372 (1997) and USGS Open-File Report 2009-1093 for a description of the SSHAC process. This will ensure stability of the final products (by virtue of capturing the views of the broader technical community) and full transparency of the process.
The selected project team is required to attend and participate in the relevant SSHAC workshops and meetings (see “Required reporting and attendance to meetings” section).
Background and Objective of Project
This is a request for proposals to validate up to a total of five finite fault simulation procedures for the Central and Eastern North-America (CENA). A team may propose on a single procedure or multiple procedures. Due to the paucity of recorded data in the CENA, the NGA-East project will heavily rely on simulated ground motions for the development of ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs). In separate activities, procedures that are successfully validated may be implemented on the SCEC/USGS Broadband Strong Motion Simulation Platform, and then used to simulate ground motions that will contribute to the database for the generation of ground motion prediction equations for the CENA.
Those simulations will be for magnitudes 6.0 to 8.0, distances from 0 to 1200 km, and response spectral frequencies from 0.05 to 100Hz, on hard rock site conditions. The NGA-East program will define the “hard rock condition”.
Detailed Scope of Project
The scope of work described below covers the validation of existing finite fault simulations for application to the CENA. In responding to this RFP please provide a cost breakdown per task. The estimated duration of this effort is 6 months. The maximum budget allocated for this effort is $30,000.00 per finite fault simulation procedure, including the Principal Investigator’s (PI’s) indirect costs.
Specific Task: Validation of Finite Fault Simulations for CENA
This RFP is NOT for the development of new finite fault simulation models, but rather for the validation of existing models for the CENA region. PIs are to present their model and its applicability to NGA-East.
The validation will use a total of up to seven pre-defined set of recordings from large earthquakes in the western US and recent Eastern North America (ENA) data with M>5.5. PIs shall compute the goodness of fit for the validations including biases and standard errors between observed and simulated ground motion response spectral values across the frequency band between 0.05 to 100 Hz.
Selected models will be implemented on the SCEC/USGS Broadband Strong Motion Simulation Platform under separate funding. Additional information on the SCEC/USGS Broadband Strong Motion Simulation Platform: the platform requires that earthquake source generation, seismic wave propagation, and site response be done in separate modules, with specified input and output parameter types and formats, to provide for interchangeability between different procedures. If seismic wave propagation is done separately for low and high frequencies, these are also done in separate modules. PIs should prepare a proposal clearly stating the technical approach and methodology for their existing ground motion simulation procedure. The technical description should include all of the kinematic source parameters and all of the path and site parameters used in the simulation. PIs shall indicate which of the kinematic parameters are optimized during the validation and which are held fixed.
The proposal should state whether the procedure can be implemented on the SCEC/USGS Platform in the separate modules as described above.
Required reporting and attendance to meetings
The SSHAC Level 3 process requires detailed documentation. The final report shall be fully transparent and provide the reader with a clear understanding of the inputs, processes and activities, technical basis and results. The PIs shall prepare a final report documenting the data, relationships, assumptions, findings and conclusions. In addition to the written reports, the contractor will have to attend the NGA-East public workshop on November 16, 2010 and one day during the week of June 6-10, 2011.
The NGA-East project involves a large number of researchers and working groups (WGs). Timely hand-offs (input/output) at the interface between the different researchers and WGs are critical to the success of the project. For this specific proposal, the expected interactions or milestone deliverables involving the selected contractor are:
- Receive Q values from Path Working Group for the CENA cases,
- Obtain site conditions from the Geotech Working Group for the CENA cases
- For Western events, the database of the NGA West 2 will be available to the PI.
Process of Submitting Proposal
The process of proposal submission and selection is as follows:
- Interested PIs should submit a proposal of maximum 5 pages consisting of the following items:
- A cover letter.
- A 2-page technical proposal clearly stating the technical approach and methodology for their ground motion simulation procedure. The technical description should include all of the kinematic source parameters and all of the path and site parameters used in the simulation. It should also include whether the model can be implemented into the SCEC/USGS Platform and limitations regarding applicability to NGA-East (magnitude distance range, for example).
- A budget sheet showing details of the proposed charges should also be attached.
- A one-page summary of the experience of the PI (and key team members, if applicable) in simulating broadband strong ground motion for seismological and earthquake engineering applications. It should also include a brief review of any previous validation studies of the proposed approach.
- The entire proposal document and the 1-page covering letter should be uploaded via this web page Proposals submitted via any other means (e.g., email to PEER or other agencies; surface or express mail) will not be considered.
- The deadline of the proposal submission is September 8, 2010.
- Successful teams (up to 5 teams may be selected) will be notified by September 30, 2010.
- The selection criteria will include the technical soundness of the proposed methodology and the experience of the team.
Specific questions about the proposals should be submitted via email to: peer_center@berkeley.edu
RFP Issued: August 18, 2010
The deadline to submit technical proposals has expired.
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