NGA-West2, which is the Phase 2 of the Next Generation Attenuation relationships for shallow crustal earthquakes in active tectonic regions, has been coordinated by PEER and financially supported by the California Earthquake Authority (CEA), California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E). Similar to the previous phase, NGA-West2 will have major impacts on the entire earthquake engineering community. For example, the USGS is reviewing the NGA-West2 GMPEs to consider their adoption for the upcoming US National Seismic Hazard Maps. Site-specific applications will also be affected by the NGA-West2 products.

Flatfile

In the tradition of the openness, the NGA-West2 database “flatfiles” used in various research components of NGA-West2 have also been posted at PEER website: http://peer.berkeley.edu/ngawest2/databases/

The actual time series of the database for download are being incorporated into an updated version of the online user-friendly PEER Ground Motion Database which will be completed later in 2013.

Reports

The following final reports from various NGA-West2 sub-projects are now available for free download at http://peer.berkeley.edu/publications/peer_reports_complete.html:

PEER 2013/03 – PEER NGA-West2 Database
by Timothy D. Ancheta, Robert B. Darragh, Jonathan P. Stewart, Emel Seyhan, Walter J. Silva, Brian S.J. Chiou, Katie E. Wooddell, Robert W. Graves, Albert R. Kottke, David M. Boore, Tadahiro Kishida, and Jennifer L. Donahue

PEER 2013/04 – Update of the AS08 Ground-Motion Prediction Equations Based on the NGA-West2 Data Set
by Norman A. Abrahamson, Walter J. Silva, and Ronnie Kamai

PEER 2013/05 – NGA-West2 Equations for Predicting Response Spectral Accelerations for Shallow Crustal Earthquakes
by David M. Boore, Jonathan P. Stewart, Emel Seyhan, and Gail M. Atkinson

PEER 2013/06 – NGA-West2 Campbell-Bozorgnia Ground Motion Model for the Horizontal Components of PGA, PGV, and 5%-Damped Elastic Pseudo-Acceleration Response Spectra for Periods Ranging from 0.01 to 10 sec
by Kenneth W. Campbell and Yousef Bozorgnia

PEER 2013/07 – Update of the Chiou and Youngs NGA Ground Motion Model for Average Horizontal Component of Peak Ground Motion and Response Spectra
by Brian S.J. Chiou and Robert R. Youngs

PEER 2013/08 – NGA-West2 Model for Estimating Average Horizontal Values of Pseudo-Absolute Spectral Accelerations Generated by Crustal Earthquakes
by I. M. Idriss

PEER 2013/09 – Final Report of the NGA-West2 Directivity Working Group
by Paul Spudich, Jeffrey R. Bayless, Jack W. Baker, Brian S.J. Chiou, Badie Rowshandel, Shrey K. Shahi, and Paul Somerville

PEER 2013/10 – NGA-West2 Models for Ground-Motion Directionality
by Shrey K. Shahi and Jack W. Baker

PEER 2013/11 – Epistemic Uncertainty for NGA-West2 Models
by Linda Al Atik and Robert R. Youngs

PEER 2013/12 – Nonlinear Horizontal Site Response for the NGA-West2 Project
by Ronnie Kamai, Norman A. Abrahamson, Walter J. Silva

PEER 2013/13 – Semi-Empirical Nonlinear Site Amplification and its Application in NEHRP Site Factors
by Jonathan P. Stewart and Emel Seyhan (available in summer 2013)

PEER 2013/14 – Hanging-Wall Scaling using Finite-Fault Simulations
by Jennifer L. Donahue and Norman A. Abrahamson (available in summer 2013)

PEER 2012/01 – Spectral Damping Scaling Factors for Shallow Crustal Earthquakes in Active Tectonic Regions
by Sanaz Rezaeian, Yousef Bozorgnia, I.M. Idriss, Kenneth Campbell, Norman Abrahamson and Walter Silva (sub-project previously published in 2012 on the issue of damping scaling of response spectra)

Next Steps

The task for vertical ground motion is still underway and will be completed in late summer 2013.
 
PEER and EERI are currently planning a traveling seminar series for Fall 2013 that will describe the NGA-West2 findings, discuss the implementation of the new GMPEs and other research outcomes, and summarize the impacts on the earthquake engineering community.  These seminars will be held in Southern California, Northern California, Seattle, and Utah.  More details will be sent as these events approach!

To read more, visit the NGA-East Technical Update for the first quarter of 2013.

For more information about the NGA-East project, go to: http://peer.berkeley.edu/ngaeast/

Questions? Contact Christine Goulet at goulet@berkeley.edu

Visit the PEER publications page to download a free color pdf of the document.

The EERI/FEMA fellowship provides a nine-month stipend of $12,000 with an additional $8,000 for tuition, fees, and research expenses. Applicants must be enrolled in a graduate degree program at an accredited U.S. college or university and must hold U.S. citizenship or permanent resident status. All applications must include an academic transcript and a statement of educational and career goals. All application materials must be submitted electronically to EERI, including a letter of nomination from a faculty sponsor at the student’s institution and two additional reference letters. Letters should evaluate the applicant’s recent academic performance and the candidate’s potential to contribute to the field.

Candidates may download an application by visiting EERI's Graduate Fellowship page. The deadline for submission of all application materials is May 13, 2013.

Tell us what you think of their designs. Go to http://nees.org/7nscbridgedesignhome and click on the links to view the posters and vote for your favorite(s). You may vote for as many as you like, but you may only submit your voting scorecard once. Voting closes on May 20.

The top five bridges will be tested at the 7NSC in Oakland on May 20-22, 2013. For more information, visit the NSC website.

Special Session proposals are due April 15, 2013 and Abstracts are due June 15, 2013.

Call for Papers
Prospective authors are invited to submit abstracts of no more than 500 words for the conference. The abstract submission deadline is June 15, 2013. Abstracts can be submitted online at http://submissions.miracd.com/10NCEE/login.aspx

Special Sessions
The conference will include a number of Special Sessions. Those interested in organizing and chairing a Special Session should contact either of the Technical Program committee co-chairs, Scott Ashford or Greg Deierlein, by April 15, 2013.

More information can be found on the 10NCEE conference website.

Column splices are used in all types of steel framing systems for several reasons. The most prominent of these reasons include the impracticality of transporting very long rolled sections to the construction site, OSHA overhead height limits on unfastened steel framing, and to implement cost savings. Research in the area of steel column splices occurred prior to the Northridge earthquake of 1994, and suggested that partial joint penetration (PJP) welds were prone to brittle failure. Since the Northridge quakes, weld quality has improved measurably and the objective of the project is to determine the feasibility of using PJP welds in modern steel special moment resisting frame (SMRF) buildings.

Five full-scale steel columns were tested using the unique 4 million pound press in the nees@berkeley lab to determine if PJP weld splice details could still achieve adequate performance under seismic loading while also reducing the construction costs and improving the constructability of steel SMRF buildings. These steel columns were W14 and W24 sections with sizes that could be used in buildings ranging from 4 – 20 stories.

A filmed interview with the UC Davis researchers has been overlaid with test footage from several of the steel column tests, and is now available for viewing on PEER’s YouTube Channel, the nees@berkeley website, and the NEEShub.

These experimental research tests at nees@berkeley are part a project titled “Seismic Performance of Column Splices” funded by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) and the National Science Foundation, shared-use award #0825155.

More information about the project can be found at the nees@berkeley project web page.

The seminar is being presented by Professor Asif Usmani from the BRE Center for Fire Safety Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. The webinar will present the new capabilities in OpenSees related to the modeling of structures subjected to fire that Professor Usmani and his group developed. This work could be utilized to model fire following earthquake events using OpenSees.

This seminar covers:

• - Background material showing real world examples and experimental tests
• - Behavior of materials at elevated temperatures
• - New OpenSees classes and commands
• - Examples
• - Summary and conclusions

How can I join the seminar?
Register for the seminar on March 27 at 5:00 pm GMT (10:00 am Pacific Time)

Once registered, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions for joining the meeting. More information will be posted at the Discovering OpenSees Wiki page.

After the seminar, please complete the short evaluation form to give OpenSees feedback and to suggest future seminar topics.

Past Discovering OpenSees Seminars – how to find past seminar recordings
For more information about the Discovering OpenSees Series including previous presentation slides, video recordings, and topics, visit the Discovering OpenSees Wiki page.

For more information about OpenSees, visit: http://opensees.berkeley.edu/

This one-day special session is focused on the recent developments for ground motions in stable continental regions that draw on global seismic data for better and more up-to-date characterization of ground motion.  This seismic ground motion hazard information will have important impacts on the seismic risk analyses currently underway by many utilities for beyond design-basis events.

Due to expected interest in this special session from the broader earthquake engineering community, SMiRT-22 is offering a special one-day registration for those who only want to attend this special session.  Those with full SMiRT-22 conference registration may attend the NGA-East Special Session at no additional cost.

For more information about this session, including the program of speakers and registration information, visit the SMiRT-22 NGA-East Special Session web page.

Visit the PEER publications page to download a free color pdf of the document.