3342003 - Tri-Center Initiative

Project Title/ID Number	Tri-Center Initiative—3342003
Start/End Dates	10/1/03—9/30/04
Project Leader	Jack Moehle (UCB/F)
Team Members	Ron Eguchi (ImageCat/I)

F=faculty; GS=graduate student; US=undergraduate student; PD=post-doc; I=industrial collaborator; O=other

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1. Project Goals/Objectives:

The goal is to enhance PEER research in geographically distributed networks by strategic planning and collaboration with other earthquake centers.

2. Role of this project in supporting PEER’s mission (vision):

This project will improve capabilities in modeling geographically distributed networks and will enable simulation of performance of those networks. In so doing, PEER will be able to:

Measure performance of a network and
Identify impacts of individual component performance on the overall system. Both of these outcomes support PEER’s mission in PBEE.

3. Methodology Employed:

PEER has established a joint coordination committee hired a consultant (Dr. Ron Eguchi) to assist in strategic planning and program management. PEER also supports various workshops, including participation of PEER researchers as needed.

4. Brief Description of past year’s accomplishments (Year 6) & more detail on expected Year 7 accomplishments:

During Year 7, PEER has continued its joints strategic planning activity with MCEER and MAE aimed at defining the areas of mutual interest and collaboration related to research in geographically distributed networks. We jointly formed a Tri-Center Coordinating Committee on Network Systems (TC³NS) to manage on-going research collaborations between the centers. Members are the Directors from each center (M. Bruneau, J. Moehle, A. Elnashai, Acting Director), the Deputy Directors (G. Deierlein, A. Filiatrault), the Technical Director of the MCEER-FHWA program (I. Buckle), and a representative of the PEER-Lifelines program (C. Roblee).

Important developments include:

Development of a report summarizing ongoing activities and strategic planning concept, illustrated for one component of distributed systems in the accompanying figure.
The Transportation Seismic Risk Assessment Workshop (San Pedro, CA., June 23-25, 2003), bringing together tri-center researchers and transportation officials (representing end users and stakeholders) to discuss the development and application of seismic risk assessment (SRA) technologies for geographically distributed transportation systems.
Tri-Center Annual Meeting on Geographically Distributed Systems (Las Vegas, NV, Dec. 11-12, 2003), bringing together about 60 investigators, business and industry partners, and representatives of transportation and utility agencies to: Coordinate research on bridge fragility relations; Prioritize research needs on transportation system performance; Define the current status and user/researcher needs to conduct seismic risk analyses of electric utility components and systems; and Examine opportunities to improve seismic risk assessment of geographically distributed systems by tri-center research to improve characterization of seismic hazards (strong ground motions and ground deformations).

5. Other Similar Work Being Conducted Within and Outside PEER and How This Project Differs:

This project coordinates work being done in PEER, MAE, and MCEER.

6. Plans for Year 8 if project is expected to be continued:

This project will continue into Year 8 with the same general plan.

7. Describe any actual instances where you are aware your results have been used in industry:

Results from this collaboration are being used by Caltrans as it develops a model to study the expected performance of a northern Bay Area transportation corridor.

8. Expected Milestones & Deliverables:

Report by R. Eguchi.
Transportation Seismic Risk Assessment Workshop (San Pedro, CA., June 23-25, 2003
Tri-Center Annual Meeting on Geographically Distributed Systems (Las Vegas, NV, Dec. 11-12, 2003)