This award provides funding for University of California - San Diego (UCSD) to purchase advanced instrumentation and do associated work for the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) - Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table (LHPOST), that will be operated by NEES Consortium, Inc., as a national shared use facility during FY 2005 - FY 2014. This funding is provided for the procurement of a distributed data acquisition system and a range of sensors (displacement transducers, accelerometers and an optical displacement measurement system) that can be deployed outdoors and used in large-scale experimentation. Such equipment is necessary for the operation of NEES Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table (LHPOST). The instrumentation includes: A distributed data acquisition system which will initially consist of a central control computer, a central distribution terminal, and eight 64-channel general purpose distributed data acquisition system. Under this funding a total of 256 channels will be acquired; Sensotec transducer is a 50 mm stroke transducer that will provide infinite resolution and a maximum nonlinearity of 0.25% of full scale which will be used to obtain quantities such as displacements, rotations, curvatures or shear deformations. Twenty-four transducers will be funded under this proposal; The Ametek Rayelco Model PSS-50A-HT transducer is a submersible wire potentiometer with a total stroke of 50 inches. It will be used for measuring larger displacements. Thirty-six transducers of this type will be purchased with funds recommended in this proposal; The Crossbow LP series accelerometers are general- purpose linear acceleration sensors available in various ranges. Sixteen 4 g tri-axial Crossbow LP series accelerometers will be purchased with funds recommended in this proposal; ShapeMonitor is a turnkey system that allows for measuring objects in real-time. The system comprises a high-speed computer, frame grabber, dual digital cameras for data acquisition and a target projector. ShapeMonitor allows for measurement of objects whether they are static or dynamic. The system can also be used in harsh environments and poor platform stability where laser systems fail. The ShapeMonitor program is hardware independent. This camera system will be used for monitoring the response and image-post processing of the sub-assemblage and systems level specimens. This augmented instrumentation will enable researchers to obtain quality data gained from the landmark tests conducted by NEES users on the LHPOST using the requested equipment and sensors. 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).
