This action is to support a workshop to review the existing database of earthquake strong motion records, identify gaps that may exist in this data, determine and prioritize the needs for additional data, and make recommendations regarding future needs in strong motion research.
This workshop builds on previous influential workshops in the field of strong motion earthquake instrumentation, workshops that led to the successful installation of strong motion arrays in the United States, Taiwan, India, China, and Japan. These arrays have provided important data that have improved the understanding of strong earthquake ground motion and the effects of this motion on the built environment. Much has happened in the past few years, such as the current formation of the George E. Brown Jr Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation. It is now time to take a fresh look at strong motion earthquake instrument deployment in light of new instrument technologies and significant new government monitoring and experimentation initiatives; to reassess the status of strong motion instrumentation in the United States; and to develop a new strategy to insure continued coordinated progress in this field.
In order to achieve this, the workshop will undertake the following tasks: 1) determine the status of strong motion instrumentation programs in the US and Mexico and the availability of data to the user community, 2) gather information on the status of strong motion instrumentation programs outside the US, and the extent to which critical data needed by US researchers and practitioners may be obtained from foreign sources, 3) identify the highest priority strong motion data needs for US programs, 4) develop possible strategies for obtaining needed strong motion data for research and application, including consideration of existing and planned strong motion programs of different Federal and State agencies, seismo-tectonic and geo-political factors, mobile versus fixed installations, and other issues, and 5) identify factors that need to be considered in cost/benefit analysis for strong motion instrumentation deployment. The primary focus of this Workshop will be on the engineering uses of strong motion data.
The workshop will bring together leading experts on the subject of the collection and use of ground motion data and develop new concepts on priorities and needed developments.
Ground motion data have a pervasive influence. The programs that collect and provide this data are a key research infrastructure in earthquake engineering. Modernizing strong motion databases and instrumentation programs will provide benefits that will accrue to many investigators in the field. Increasingly, accessibility to ground motion data repositories is providing opportunities for researchers and educators who are new to the earthquake engineering field.
