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James Moore II, University of Southern California
Seismic Hazard Simulation of Bay Area Highway Network Analysis—3222002
James Moore (USC/F), Yue Yue Fan (USC/GS), Sungbin Cho (USC/GS), Qisheng Pan (USC/GS), Soojung Kim (USC/GS), Dongwhan An (USC/GS), Deepali Chausalkar (USC/GS)
The goals of the PEER Seismic Hazard Simulation of Bay Area Highway Network Transportation Analysis are to develop appropriate analytical and computational methods for evaluating the impact of a transportation system on an urban area and to illustrate the utility of these methods through an application to a region. In general, risk analysis of highway transportation systems is performed with the objective to provide:
Life Sciences Testbed Simulation—3242002
Khalid Mosalam (UCB/F), Tae-Hyung Lee (UCB/GS)
Develop a state-of-the-art computational model and perform nonlinear dynamic analysis of the UC-Berkeley Life Sciences building using the OpenSees simulation platform to demonstrate PEER performance-based earthquake engineering assessment and design methodologies. The project has dual objectives:
Practitioner Critique of PEER Bridge Analysis Methodology—3322002
William Nascimento (LAN/I), Mohan Char (LAN/I)
Review Assessment and Design Methodologies of Performance Based Earthquake Engineering developed by PEER with emphasis on practical design applicability.
Coordination of SMA Site Data from Taiwan: Phase I—Lifelines 2A02d
Robert Nigbor (USC/F), Ali Asghari (USC/GS), Jennifer Swift (USC/F), John Diehl (I), Rob Steller (I), Rong-Ruey Lee (I), Ming-Hung Chen (NCREE/O)
The objective of this project is to form a collaboration between PEER and NCREE regarding site characterization work at strong motion stations in Taiwan. Specific goals for this Phase 1 project are the execution of collaborative work at three strong-motion stations, the publication of these collaborative data, and the dissemination by NCREE of all of their site characterization data.
Database of Seismic Parameters of Equipment in Substations—Lifelines 413
Dennis Ostrom (I)
Electrical substations consist of many pieces of equipment that are vulnerable to earthquakes. Vulnerability depends on a variety of parameters including equipment type, voltage, manufacturer, seismic design criteria, installation and anchorage, foundations and soil conditions, and connection to other equipment. In order to be able to make accurate and standardized estimates of potential losses in earthquakes and to set priorities for equipment upgrades and replacements, an accurate database of the relevant seismic-performance parameters of substation equipment is needed. In this project, a comprehensive procedure for compiling seismic performance parameters will be developed and documented. The experience gained in assessing seismic vulnerability of substation equipment in previous PEER Lifelines Program research will be incorporated.
Gerard C. Pardoen, University of California, Irvine
Performance Characteristics of Bench- and Shelf-Mounted Equipment—5292002
Tara Hutchinson (UCI/F), Gerard Pardoen (UCI/F), Roberto Villaverde (UCI/F), Robert Kazanjy (UCI/O), Samit Ray Chaudhuri (UCI/GS), Jake Bazen (UCI/US)Modeling and evaluating the response of nonstructural equipment and contents is important for determining the overall economic losses associated with an earthquake event. The particular objectives of studies at UCI, which complement studies by researchers at UCB (Makris), are to characterize the seismic performance of bench and shelf-mounted equipment and contents within a biological/chemical building. In this case, the emphasis is on equipment and contents present in the UC Science building. Our approach, which contributes to the development of performance-based design methodologies, is to develop analytical seismic fragility curves describing the probability of exceedance of a limit state (damage measure DM) given an input (an engineering demand parameter EDP). Experimental data is being used to provide dynamic characterization of the supporting bench system and response information regarding the equipment-bench interface.
[Full Report]
Improvements to Modeling Substation Equipment—Lifelines 404
Gerard Pardoen (UCI/F), Charles Hamilton (UCI/PD), Rick Tavares (UCI/PD), Davis Fetter (UCI/US), Julie Manson UCI/US)Utilities use different types of substation equipment that have dynamic characteristics that are not well known for many classes of equipment. Manufacturer differences in design, method of structural support, physical dimensions, voltage class differences as well as differences at the component level are just some of the features that introduce variations of dynamic behavior. Although utilities have been specifying that equipment be seismically qualified by analysis for many years, there is uncertainty in the dynamic properties and methods of modeling used in these analyses.
This project intends to improve the methods used for modeling electric substation equipment through a combination of experimental and analytical studies of bushings, transformers, and disconnect switches.
[Full Report]
Building Performance and Loss Measures—1222002
James Beck (Caltech/F), Keith Porter (Caltech/F), Rustem Shaikhutdinov (Caltech/GS)The objectives of this project are to develop and illustrate the damage- and loss-analysis portions of PEER’s PBEE methodology for modern structures with high-value equipment and contents. We are focusing on elucidating and illustrating the analysis of two important aspects of seismic performance—operational failure and life-safety failure—associated with equipment and content damage. We are also examining repair cost and repair duration, although in less detail, and including in our analyses the performance of some architectural elements, probably gypsum wallboard partitions on metal-stud framing.
Coordinate PEER Methodology Testbed Research—3262002
Keith Porter (Caltech/F)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.
Taxonomy of Nonstructural Components—5372002
Keith Porter (Caltech/F)Create a taxonomic system for defining nonstructural building components.
Design Ground Motion Library—Lifelines 1F01
Maurice Power (Geomatrix/I), Robert Youngs (I), Faiz Makdisi (I), Donald Wells (I), Ronald Hamburger (I), Ronald Mayes (I), Roupen Donikian (I), Yusof Ghanaat (I), Walter Silva (I), Allin Cornell (Stanford/F), Paul Somerville (I), Stephen Mahin (UCB/F), Ignatius Po Lam (I)The objective of this project is to develop a “Design Ground Motion Library” (DGML), which is a library of recorded acceleration time histories suitable for use by engineering practitioners for time history dynamic analysis of various facility types in the western United States, including buildings, bridges, utility structures, dams, base-isolated structures, and other common infrastructure facilities. The overall goal is to have a current and authoritative library of strong motion records endorsed by leading scientists and users within the professional seismological and engineering communities.
[Full Report]
Parameterization of Non-Stationary Acceleration Time Histories—Lifelines 1G00
Paolo Bazzurro (AIR/I), Nicolas Luco (AIR/I), Norm Abrahamson (PG&E/I), Brian Chiou (Caltrans/I), Allin Cornell (Stanford/F), Joe Maffei (R&C/I), Maury Power (Geomatrix/I)The project is structured into two phases:
Phase I: Investigate whether "non-stationary" characteristics of seismograms, in addition to more conventional ground motion intensity measures (e.g., spectral values), can improve the accuracy in the prediction of structural seismic performance.
Phase II: Three tasks
- to provide the quantitative technical basis to establish the threshold limits beyond which earthquake record scaling introduces bias in the nonlinear response of structures (issue of particular interest to the PEER Lifelines Program's Design Ground Motion Library study).
- to provide the tools necessary for the synthetic time history validation criteria currently being developed by the PEER Lifelines Program (NGA Working Group #3). These criteria will consider the issue of nonlinear structural response.
- to provide a technical basis for some of the assumptions used in the PEER Lifelines Project 507 entitled "The Advanced Seismic Assessment Guidelines," which provided recommendations for "tagging" of buildings damaged by a mainshock and susceptible to an aftershock. These assumptions are also relevant to the follow-up applications PEER Lifelines Projects 508 and 509.
Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) Models, WUS Shallow Crustal Earthquake—Lifelines 1L01
Maurice Power (Geomatrix/I), Robert Youngs (I), I.M. Idriss (UCD/F), Kenneth Cambell (ABS/I), Yousef Bozorgnia (I)The overall goal of project 1L Series is to develop Next-Generation Ground Motion Attenuation (NGA) Models for shallow crustal earthquakes in the western United States. Project Task No. 1L01 covers two components of the NGA project: (1) project coordination – project coordinator Maurice Power; and (2) participation of three of the teams developing NGA models – Robert Youngs and Brian Chiou (Task 1L01 provides support for Robert Youngs; Brian Chiou is directly supported by Caltrans); Kenneth Campbell and Yousef Bozorgnia; and I.M. Idriss.
[Full Report]
Performance Evaluation of Gypsum Wallboard Partitions—5322002
André Filiatrault (UCSD/F), José Restrepo (UCSD/F), Andrew Bersofsky (UCSD/GS)
The objectives of this project are to develop data and models to characterize the performance of gypsum wallboard partitions, of the type common to modern office, hotel, and laboratory buildings.
Fatality Model for Buildings Using Historical Earthquake Experience Data—1262002
Kimberly Shoaf (UCLA/F), Hope Seligson (I)Create a mathematical model of fatalities in buildings as a function of local or global structural collapse and of structure type, and illustrate using the Van Nuys testbed.
[Full Report]
Fatality Model for Buildings Using Historical Earthquake Experience Data—1262002
Kimberly Shoaf (UCLA/F), Hope Seligson (I)Create a mathematical model of fatalities in buildings as a function of local or global structural collapse and of structure type, and illustrate using the Van Nuys testbed.
[Full Report]
Comparison of Ground Motion Characteristics Between Taiwan and California—Lifelines 1E07
Walter Silva (PE&A/I)There are two objectives to this project:
[Full Report]
NGA Data Sets—Lifelines 1L02
Walter Silva (PE&A/I)Configure the PEER Strong Motion Data Set for use in developing empirical attenuation relations.
Performance of Improved Ground—2222002
Nicholas Sitar (UCB/F), Elizabeth Hausler (UCB/PD), Gang Wang (UCB/GS)This project was started in year 5 as a result of issues that arose during the seismic retrofit on the Berkeley Campus and it is aimed at developing a better understanding of the axial response of pier foundations under seismic loading. The traditional methods used for the evaluation of axial capacity of deep foundations under dynamic loading lead to extremely conservative and costly foundations. The conservativeness of the foundation design translates into increased demands on the structure itself and, hence, very costly structural systems. Test with direct evaluation of the dynamic axial response on the Berkeley Campus and at other sites in the S.F. Bay area showed a significant increase in the predicted axial stiffness and axial capacity of deep foundation elements over traditional design methods. As a result at Berkeley, the net savings to the Berkeley Campus were over $500K on one project alone. The objective of this research is twofold: (1) to develop an numerical model for axial response of drilled piers; and (2) to use the existing field test data and the results of numerical analyses to develop axial capacity and axial deformation relationships for different site conditions for use in PBEE.
[Full Report]
Design Ground Motion Library—Lifelines 1F01
Maurice Power (Geomatrix/I), Robert Youngs (I), Faiz Makdisi (I), Donald Wells (I), Ronald Hamburger (I), Ronald Mayes (I), Roupen Donikian (I), Yusof Ghanaat (I), Walter Silva (I), Allin Cornell (Stanford/F), Paul Somerville (I), Stephen Mahin (UCB/F), Ignatius Po Lam (I)The objective of this project is to develop a “Design Ground Motion Library” (DGML), which is a library of recorded acceleration time histories suitable for use by engineering practitioners for time history dynamic analysis of various facility types in the western United States, including buildings, bridges, utility structures, dams, base-isolated structures, and other common infrastructure facilities. The overall goal is to have a current and authoritative library of strong motion records endorsed by leading scientists and users within the professional seismological and engineering communities.
[Full Report]
John Stanton, University of Washington
Validation of Simulation and Performance Models of RC Joints—5352002
Dawn Lehman (UW/F), John Stanton (UW/F), George Gimas (UW/US), Meredith Anderson (UW/GS)
The goals of the study are to develop practical simulation and performance models for beam-column joints that lack transverse reinforcement. The specific objectives, which constitute the research tasks and deliverables, include:
Archiving and Web Dissemination of Geotechnical Data—Lifelines 2L02
Carl Stepp (COSMOS/I), Jennifer Swift (USC/PD), Jean Benoit (UNH/F), Loren Turner (Caltrans/I)Develop a Pilot System for web-based dissemination of linked geotechnical database archives, develop and implementation plan, and plan and conduct a workshop to review and obtain input and consensus of the geotechnical community.
Empirical Characterization of Basin Effects on Site Response—2252002
Jonathan Stewart (UCLA/F), Yoojong Choi (UCLA/GS), Robert Graves (I)This Year 6 project is an extension of the Year 5 project having the same title. As described in the original project proposal, the general intent of this work is to develop a statistically robust engineering model for characterizing basin effects on ground motion intensity measures (IMs). The approach taken is to evaluate residuals between data and predictions, and correlate these residuals to basin geometric parameters. The predictions used to evaluate the residuals will, to the extent possible, remove the effects of site, path, and shallow ground response in an average sense, so that the deviations from data can be attributed to basin response.
Proposal to Investigate the Seismic Response of Short-Period Buildings—2332002
Christopher Rojahn (ATC/I), Jonathan Stewart (UCLA/F)In October 2002, PEER awarded the Applied Technology Council (ATC) a contract to investigate the seismic response of short period buildings (ATC-55-1). The ATC-55-1 project is being conducted in support of a larger ATC project (ATC-55), “Evaluation and Improvement of Inelastic Analysis Procedures”, which is funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The objectives of the larger ATC-55 project, which is being conducted in several phases over a two-to-three year period, are: (1) the development of practical recommendations for improved prediction of inelastic structural response of buildings to earthquakes (i.e., guidance for improved application of inelastic analysis procedures) and (2) the identification of important issues for future research.
Supplement and Validation of Silva Theoretical Amplification Factors—Lifelines 2G01
Jonathan Stewart (UCLA/F), Annie Kwok (UCLA/GS)The goals of this project are two-fold. First, we have extended the scope of the original 2G01 project to include the preparation of a final written project report documenting considerations associated with the selection of calibration sites and comparison of ground response predictions to other ground motion prediction techniques. Included in this report is discussion of a technique for the interpretation of ground response results suggested by Norman Abrahamson that involves the estimation of response spectra as the product of the input target spectrum and the median RRS (ratio of response spectra from ground response analysis). Second, we are validating Walt Silva’s surface-geology based amplification factors against strong motion data.
Bridge Fragility and Post Earthquake Capacity—3182002
Bozidar Stojadinovic (UCB/F), Kevin Mackie (UCB/GS), Kyunghoo Lee (UCB/GS)
The goal of this project is to develop fragility functions for bridges to be used in PEER testbed projects. Fragility functions express the probability that a certain level of a decision variable related to bridge function is exceeded in a given seismic hazard environment. The objectives of the proposed project are:
Application of SASW to US SMA Sites—Lifelines 2C01
Kenneth Stokoe II (UT/F), Brent Rosenblad (UT/PD), Hyung Park (UT/PD), Yin Cheng Lin (UT/GS), Jagrut Jathal (UT/GS)
The goal of this project is to evaluate shear wave velocity (Vs) profiles at approximately 15 sites in the Los Angeles, CA area using noninvasive, surface-wave seismic technology. The results of the Vs profiles will fulfill three purposes. First, at many sites, new information will be generated for PEER Lifelines Task 2G01 where profiles to depths in excess of 30 m would be beneficial. Second, some sites will be drilled and logged in the future under PEER Lifelines Task 2A01. The Vs profiles will be used in “blind” comparisons with subsequent profiles measured with the suspension logger. Third, some sites have “old” Vs profiles; that is, Vs measurements performed by other seismic test methods. The new Vs profiles will permit evaluation of the validity of the older data.
Performance of Lifelines Subjected to Lateral Spreading—2342002
Scott Ashford (UCSD/F), Chia-Ming Uang (UCSD/F), Teerawut Juirnarongrit (UCSD/PD), Ben Siegel (UCSD/GS), Lisa Everingham (UCSD/US)The overall project goal is to utilize the full-scale data assess current methods for estimating the effect of lateral spreading on pile foundations and pipelines, and develop new procedures if necessary. Specifically for Year 6, our objectives are to:
- Back calculate P-y curves for all specimens for both tests.
- Model Experiment 1 using OPENSEES.
Performance Characteristics of Bench- and Shelf-Mounted Equipment—5292002
Tara Hutchinson (UCI/F), Gerard Pardoen (UCI/F), Roberto Villaverde (UCI/F), Robert Kazanjy (UCI/O), Samit Ray Chaudhuri (UCI/GS), Jake Bazen (UCI/US)Modeling and evaluating the response of nonstructural equipment and contents is important for determining the overall economic losses associated with an earthquake event. The particular objectives of studies at UCI, which complement studies by researchers at UCB (Makris), are to characterize the seismic performance of bench and shelf-mounted equipment and contents within a biological/chemical building. In this case, the emphasis is on equipment and contents present in the UC Science building. Our approach, which contributes to the development of performance-based design methodologies, is to develop analytical seismic fragility curves describing the probability of exceedance of a limit state (damage measure DM) given an input (an engineering demand parameter EDP). Experimental data is being used to provide dynamic characterization of the supporting bench system and response information regarding the equipment-bench interface.
[Full Report]
RC Shear Wall Model Implementation and Validation—5332002
John Wallace (UCLA/F), Kutay Orakcal (UCLA/GS), Leonardo Massone (UCLA/GS)
The project involves development and calibration of a robust model for reinforced concrete shear walls and implementation of the model into the OpenSees platform. A multiple-component-in-parallel model (or multiple-vertical-line-element model) has been selected for the modeling effort. Cyclic material relations used for reinforcing steel and concrete will be employed, and will address gap opening and closing behavior. Simulation results for both global and local responses obtained using the model will be compared with experimental results obtained for moderate-scale shear wall tests, such as those reported by Thomsen and Wallace (1995) and Taylor and Wallace (1995). An important aspect of the project will involve work to address nonlinear shear behavior and the linkage of shear strength degradation with flexural ductility. The potential to expand the model to address flanged walls by using shape functions to describe nonlinear strain distributions for wall flanges, and sub-elements to model wall openings, will be investigated.