This award provides funding to the University of Nevada - Reno (UNR), to upgrade the experimental capabilities of the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Bi-axial Multiple Shake Table Research facility at UNR that will be operated by NEES Consortium, Inc., as a national shared use facility during FY 2005 - FY 2014. The requested equipment provides real-time control and simulation (RTCS) network capability for the UNR NEES site, and was selected based on input from earthquake engineering researchers interested in using this equipment site, and includes: real-time control and simulation (RTCS) equipment that will enhance the existing NEES equipment by allowing access, and operation of the combined system in real-time within the laboratory LAN (local area network), and potentially over a high performance Internet network (e.g. upgraded I2 and successors). These added features will allow NEES researchers to conduct Real-Time Fast-Hybrid Tests (FHT), which will combine physical testing with model-based simulation. This added capability will allow experiments to study performance of large structural systems that exceed the capacity of the existing tables using sub-structuring techniques and numerical simulation,
This equipment will be available to the earthquake engineering research community through the NEES Consortium, Inc., UNR NEES facility. This award is funded by the NSF NEES Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) project and is a component of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP).
