Earthquake Engineering

NEES - Unprecedented Support for Earthquake Engineering Research

Earthquakes have occurred on every continent on the planet. They can be so mild that they go unnoticed, or so powerful that buildings, roads, and bridges collapse. Day-to-day life is interrupted when homes and businesses are unsafe to occupy; when tunnels and roads must be closed for inspection; and when communications are cut-off because phone lines and radio towers are destroyed. Thus, the cost of an earthquake is much more than just the expense of repairing and rebuilding damaged structures - an earthquake or tsunami can interrupt commercial life and destroy local economies. The social and economic impact of a big earthquake can be devastating, even when there is no loss of human life.

The first step in preparing for earthquakes is to understand what forces cause them and the effects the shaking of the earth's surface have on the structures we create. Engineers in general use scientific knowledge to solve practical problems. Earthquake engineers study how building designs and materials can be used to build, or reinforce, man-made structures in order to withstand earthquakes' destructive forces.

To study earthquakes, researchers must be able to "create" them under controlled conditions. The National Science Foundation has funded the creation of fifteen unique earthquake testing facilities throughout the US, under a program called the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES).

Distance will not be an issue for these laboratories, since all the laboratories are interconnected with a state-of-the-art information technology system, NEESit. This allows the laboratories to work together on shared experiments, as well as store experimental data for later reference in a shared data repository. Not just researchers, but anyone interested in the ongoing experimentation will be able to view the tests and even interact with laboratory staff. All the characteristics and effects of an earthquake can be reliably reproduced, again and again, to allow for close examination of the effects on models of buildings, bridges, port facilities, and other critical infrastructure. In addition, NEES provides software for earthquake researchers that allow them to simulate the effects of earthquakes using computer models.