The Consortium of Organization for Strong Motion Observation Systems (COSMOS) will be holding its Annual Meeting and Technical Session, “Current Ground-Motion Design Value Maps—Issues and Proposed Solutions“, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel San Francisco Airport in Burlingame, California on Friday, November 13th, 2015.
This year’s Technical Session is sponsored by the California Geological Survey (CGS) and co-sponsored by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Center (PEER) and the Applied Technology Council (ATC).
This session will focus primarily on issues with current design ground maps and proposed solutions to overcome these issues. One of the significant issues is large swings that occur in some areas with each release of the National Seismic Hazard Maps and the need to have more stability from an engineering standpoint given the precision and uncertainty in probabilistic and deterministic seismic hazard evaluations. This issue is occurring in many arenas including seismic criteria for dams, nuclear facilities and building codes. Other issues include concerns about the code spectra under prediction of demand in areas governed by large magnitude earthquake at periods greater and one second and in basin areas.
The goal for this session is to have the leading authorities in the development of the ground motion design maps discuss the current issues and the current proposal to improve the situation in future editions of the design ground motion maps and code design spectra. Other areas that will be discussed include use of numerical simulation to develop design ground motions for Los Angeles Basin Region, updates on the new PEER NGA-East Ground Motions, and the new QuakeManager Tool.
Speakers include Norm Abrahamson, Nico Luco, Mark Petersen, Ron Hamburger, Charlie Kircher, CB Crouse, Rob Graves, Silvia Mazonni and Mahmoud Hachem. As in years past, the last part of the Technical Session will include a lively panel session which will allow a forum for discussion.
Registration and Venue
The Crowne Plaza SFO is conveniently located at 1177 Airport Boulevard one block east of the 101 Freeway. The Crowne Plaza has a complimentary shuttle (runs every 30 minutes) from San Francisco Airport. For those coming by BART, the shuttle stop is located in front of the International Terminal upper level adjacent to the SFO BART Station. The airport shuttle is available on their website.
Registration for the Technical Session will begin at 7:30 am (with coffee and pastries). The Technical Session will begin promptly at 8:30 am and with a lunch break at 11:45 am. The COSMOS Annual meeting will start at 12:15 pm and adjourn at 12:45 pm. The Technical Session will then reconvene and end at 5:00 pm. As in previous years, it will then be followed by a no-host cocktail hour.
Registration fees are $ 200 for COSMOS, PEER and ATC members and $ 240 for nonmembers that includes both lunch and refreshments. There is also a special reduced student rate of $ 40. This year, attendees will be able to earn 0.65 Continuing Education Credits (CEUs) or 6.5 Profession Development Hours (PDUs) by attending. Program details and registration information are available at the COSMOS website at www.cosmos-eq.org .