The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) is a multi-institutional research and education center with headquarters at the University of California, Berkeley. PEER’s mission is to (1) develop, validate, and disseminate performance-based engineering (PBE) technologies for buildings and infrastructure networks subjected to earthquakes and other natural hazards, with the goal of achieving community resilience; and (2) equip the earthquake engineering and other extreme-event communities with the 21st -century tools that define the current digital revolution. This reports presents the activities of the Center over the period of July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. PEER staff, in particular Grace Kang, Erika Donald, Claire Johnson, Christina Bodnar-Anderson, and Zulema Lara, helped in preparation of this report.
Key activities of the past academic year include the following:
- Continuation of major projects such as Tall Building Initiative (TBI) and Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) projects, and start of work on the major project funded by the California Earthquake Authority (CEA). The TBI was completed in 2017, and NGA projects are nearing completion soon.
- Addition of University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) as a core institution.
- Re-establishment of the PEER Research Committee.
- Issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) from TSRP funds and funding 17 projects as a result of this RFP. Together with the ongoing projects, the total number of projects funded in 2017 is 24.
- Organization of several workshops focused on Liquefaction, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), High-Performance Computing (HPC), Bridge Component Fragility Development, Physics-Based Ground Motions, Hybrid Simulation, and Research Needs for Resilient Buildings.
- Rollout of TBI seminars and HayWired activities as part of outreach.
- Conducting a blind prediction contest with robust participation and instructive findings on current modeling approaches.
- Organization of the PEER Annual Meeting with participation of 240 attendees
- Continuing participation in board of directors of international organizations such as Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI) and International Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering (ILEE).
Going forward, PEER aims to hold more focused workshops, form new committees, and draw on existing resources and experience on PBE to systematically move towards Resilient Design for Extreme Events (RDEE).
Full List of PEER Reports: click here.
