NCSA NEWS

NSF Funds NCSA-led Virtual "Collaboratory" For Better Quakeproofing

released August 27, 2001

 

Contact
Karen Green
NCSA Public Information Officer
kareng@ncsa.uiuc.edu
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CHAMPAIGN, IL — A consortium of institutions led by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will receive $10 million to build a national virtual engineering laboratory, or "collaboratory," for designing earthquake-safe structures.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced the award, which is part of its George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) project. The integrated NEES network, called NEESgrid, will link earthquake engineering research sites across the country, provide data storage facilities and repositories, and offer remote access to the latest research tools.

Through NEESgrid, researchers will be able to conduct experiments using shake tables, centrifuges, and tsunami wave tanks from their desktop workstations. They also will be able to use computer simulation software and high-performance computing clusters, and share research data stored in online repositories.

NEESgrid will take advantage of the grid tools and technologies developed over the last five years through the NSF's Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) program. Proven grid technologies—such as the Globus Toolkit for distributed computing, developed by Argonne National Laboratory and the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California (USC), both partners in the effort—will be incorporated into NEESgrid. Globus will allow researchers to seamlessly share experimental equipment, computational resources, and research data.

In addition, NEESgrid will include collaboration and teleoperation tools developed through the NSF's Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence (KDI) and Information Technology Research (ITR) initiatives and through the Department of Energy's DOE2000 effort. The Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work (CREW) at the University of Michigan's School of Information and Argonne's materials science division have developed operational collaboratories under these programs and are also members of the NEESgrid team. Joining NCSA, Argonne, ISI, and CREW in developing the NEESgrid are the UIUC and USC civil engineering departments and the National Laboratory for Applied Network Research.

"The goal is to create a collaborative research network by linking researchers and engineering testing facilities across the United States, and providing them with the latest computational tools," said Priscilla Nelson, NSF division director for civil and mechanical systems. "We expect this network to speed the simulations, experiments, and data analysis that lead to better seismic design and hazard mitigation."

"The NEES collaboratory and the NEESgrid will take many of the technologies developed through the PACI program and refine them for use by a specific technical community," said Dan Reed, director of NCSA and the National Computational Science Alliance. "This is a way for us to show the impact of the work we've been doing for the last five years and how we can apply what we've learned to the real-life needs of a group of scientists and engineers."

Three communities of earthquake engineers will be served by NEESgrid: (a)structural engineers, who study the impact of seismic activity on buildings, bridges and other structures; (b)geotechnical engineers, who study how seismic activity affects subsurface soil and rock, and the foundations of buildings and infrastructure; and (c)tsunami researchers, who are concerned with the formation and effects of tsunamis.

"NEESgrid will be an environment not only for research engineers but for practicing engineers who are involved in the actual design and development of roads, bridges, dams and buildings," said Tom Prudhomme, principal investigator for NEESgrid. "Practicing engineers don't usually use research data and complex simulation models in their work because they don't have easy access to it or effective ways to validate the results. That is about to change."

Development of NEES will continue through Sept. 30. 2004. A community-based NEES Consortium will operate the NEES collaboratory beginning in October 2004.

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is the leading-edge site for the National Computational Science Alliance. NCSA is a leader in the development and deployment of cutting-edge high-performance computing, networking, and information technologies. The National Science Foundation, the state of Illinois, the University of Illinois, industrial partners, and other federal agencies fund NCSA. The National Computational Science Alliance is a partnership to prototype an advanced computational infrastructure for the 21st century and includes more than 50 academic, government and industry research partners from across the United States.

 

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