Project Title/ID Number Coordinate PEER Methodology Testbed Research—3262002
Start/End Dates 10/1/02—9/30/03
Project Leader Keith Porter (Caltech/Faculty)
Team Members  
Project goals and objectives
  • General coordination.      Coordinate PEER methodology testbed research. Includes meetings, reports, online locus, methodological coordination, shepherding crosscutting topics, research planning, and promotion of BIP participation.
  • Meetings.      Assist RC to arrange quarterly combined testbed meetings. Assist testbed managers to arrange mid-quarter testbed-specific meetings. Assist various researchers to arrange ad-hoc meetings of crosscutting-topic groups. Participate in RC and SAC meetings.
  • Reports.      Assist testbed managers (Krawinkler, Comerio, Elgamal, & Kunnath) to coordinate whole-testbed project reports, which specify general methodology and illustrate with end-to-end analyses of individual testbeds.
  • Online locus.      Establish and maintain online locus for summary of PEER testbed projects, document exchange, documentation of progress, and contact information.
  • Coordinate methodology.      Assist testbed managers to establish and document common methodological elements between building testbeds and between bridge testbeds.
  • Crosscutting topics.     Assist researchers to advance treatment of uncertainty, evaluation of intensity measures, and establishment of bridge decision variables.
  • Research planning.      Assist RC members to develop project work-statements. Identify needed development work. Promote allocation of this work in project work-statements.
  • Promote BIP participation.     Promote BIP practitioners’ participation in the development of PEER’s methodology & comparison of PEER methodology with current practice.
Role of this project in supporting PEER’s vision
Testbeds are required to ensure that PEER’s methodology is elucidated from end to end, and illustrated for the benefit of PEER researchers and practitioners. This coordination project is necessary to ensure that individual testbed projects are effectively integrated. Testbed coordinator also offers an overview of all the testbeds in a single researcher.
Methodology employed

Combined testbed reports.      These reports, outlined in Years 5 and 6, include explicit authorship responsibilities and submission deadlines. They have helped to ensure that projects fit together and produce necessary results.
Peertestbeds.net webpage.      This commercially hosted website offers a locus for disseminating publications, presentations, contacts, and other information.

Brief description of past year’s accomplishments and more detail on expected Year 6 accomplishments
  • Reports.      Authored various report sections, most notably Introduction in Van Nuys & UC Science reports, facility definition in Van Nuys report.
  • Online locus.      Registered peertestbeds.net domain, authored & maintained content.
  • Methodology coordination.      Coordinated building-analysis methodologies via common definitions, informal meetings and formal quarterly testbed meetings between loss modelers (self included). Documented methodology in common overview text in two testbed reports and ICASP9 conference proceedings. Bridge methodologies coordinated via plenary sessions at quarterly meetings, and via informal joint meetings. Acquired and disseminated design documents and copyrights for Van Nuys testbed.

Crosscutting topics

  • Uncertainty.      Proposed and illustrated tornado-diagram approach for Van Nuys testbed; expect to do so in Year 6 for UC Science Building under a separate project with Beck. Participated in uncertainty working group.
  • IMs.      At end of year 5, promoted inclusion of evaluation tasks in year-6 workstatements for Conte, Kunnath, and possibly Hutchinson. Monitoring and encourage progress of evaluations in year 6.
  • Bridge DVs.      Drafted bridge DV and DM-DV methodology in discussions with Caltrans.
  • Research planning.      Participated in research-committee planning meetings.

BIP participation

  • Van Nuys and UC Science.      Arranged site visit and conversation with owner representative of Van Nuys. Coordinating contribution by practitioners to testbed reports of their critique of PEER’s methodology, and their state-of-the-practice analysis. Ensuring that BIPs receive necessary documents, participate in testbed meetings and contribute to reports.
  • Humboldt & I-880.      Drafted practitioner workstatements, and recruited BIP researchers (Nascimento and Imbsen). Encouraged Conte & Kunnath to outline testbed reports similar to those of Van Nuys and UC Science. Ensure Caltrans participants attend and contribute to testbed meetings and reports.
Other similar work being conducted within and outside PEER and how this project differs
 
Plans for Year 7 if this project is expected to be continued
 
Describe any instances where you are aware that your results have been used in industry
 
Expected milestones
  • Meetings as noted above.
  • Online locus.      Already established at website (www.peertestbeds.net).
  • Methodology coordination is ongoing.
  • Research planning.      Year-7 work-statements to be reviewed in Aug-Sep 2003 in coordination with RC.
  • BIP participation is ongoing, and demonstrated with text in PEER testbed reports delivered by Sep 2003, and possibly in separate publications.
  • Campus testbed plan.      Campus methodology documented in a PEER report submitted by Sep 2003.
Deliverables
  • Reports.      Van Nuys and UC Science milestones detailed in the testbed reports, deliverable in Sep 2003.
  • Peer-reviewed publications.     
    Porter, K.A., J.L. Beck, and R.V. Shaikhutdinov, 2002, “Sensitivity of Building Loss Estimates to Major Uncertain Variables,” Earthquake Spectra, 18 (4), Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Oakland, CA, 719-743, http://keithp.caltech.edu/publications.htm

    Porter, K.A., 2003 (expected), “An Overview of PEER’s Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering Methodology,” Proc. Ninth International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering (ICASP9) July 6-9, 2003, San Francisco, CA. Civil Engineering Risk and Reliability Association (CERRA), http://keithp.caltech.edu/publications.htm

Crosscutting topics

  • Uncertainty.      On track to be treated via deterministic sensitivity studies (“tornado diagrams”) to be delivered with final testbed projects (Sep 2003). Van Nuys: done in year 4 by Porter. UC Science to be done by Mosalam, Beck, and Porter, with delivery expected by Sep 2003. Humboldt and I-880 to be done by Conte and Kunnath, respectively, although delivery date is less certain. Kramer has completed a draft tornado diagram for geotechnical issues.
  • IMs.      Partially planned. Milestones and deliverables are uncertain. Evaluation for UC Science Building has progressed (Hutchinson has produced some preliminary results), but no formal deliverable has been planned. It is practical for someone to analyze IMs for Van Nuys—perhaps Hutchinson—by Sep 2003, if resources are allocated. Analysis of IMs for bridges is less certain.
  • Bridge DVs have been drafted by Porter and are currently in further development. If successful, will be documented in a PEER report, possibly in a journal article, to be submitted by Sep 2003.