PEER Reports

PEER Reports

Long-Term Monitoring of Bridge Settlements using Vision-Based Embedded System, PEER Report 2020-26

Henry L. Teng
Khalid Mosalam
2020

The State of California is highly seismic, capable of generating large-magnitude earthquakes that could cripple the infrastructure of several large cities. Yet the annual maintenance of the State’s bridges, such as highway overpasses, is not robust due to budget and staff constraints. Over 1000 bridges were not inspected according to the California Department of Transportation’s (Caltrans) 2015 Maintenance Plan. To help engineers monitor infrastructure conditions, presented within is a device recently developed that employs modern sensing, computing, and communication technologies to...

Regionalized Ground-Motion Models for Subduction Earthquakes Based on the NGA-SUB Database, PEER Report 2020-25

Norman Abrahamson
Zeynep Gülerce
2020

A set of global and region-specific ground-motion models (GMMs) for subduction zone earthquakes is developed based on the database compiled by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) Next Generation Attenuation - Subduction (NGA-SUB) project. The subset of the NGA-SUB database used to develop the GMMs includes 3914 recordings from 113 subduction interface earthquakes with magnitudes varying between 5 and 9.2 and 4850 recordings from 89 intraslab events with magnitudes varying between 5 and 7.8. Recordings in the back-arc region are excluded, except for the Cascadia region...

Seismic Performance of Single-Family Wood-Frame Houses: Comparing Analytical and Industry Catastrophe Models (PEER-CEA Project), PEER Report 2020-24

Evan Reis
2020

This report is one of a series of reports documenting the methods and findings of a multi-year, multi-disciplinary project coordinated by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER and funded by the California Earthquake Authority (CEA). The overall project is titled “Quantifying the Performance of Retrofit of Cripple Walls and Sill Anchorage in Single-Family Wood-Frame Buildings,” henceforth referred to as the “PEER–CEA Project.”

The overall objective of the PEER–CEA Project is to provide scientifically based information (e.g., testing, analysis, and...

Earthquake Damage Workshop (PEER-CEA Project), PEER Report 2020-23

Kylin Vail
Bret Lizundia
David P. Welch
Evan Reis
2020

This report is one of a series of reports documenting the methods and findings of a multi-year, multi-disciplinary project coordinated by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER and funded by the California Earthquake Authority (CEA). The overall project is titled “Quantifying the Performance of Retrofit of Cripple Walls and Sill Anchorage in Single-Family Wood-Frame Buildings,” henceforth referred to as the “PEER–CEA Project.”

The overall objective of the PEER–CEA Project is to provide scientifically based information (e.g., testing, analysis, and...

Models for the Cyclic Resistance of Silts and Evaluation of Cyclic Failure during Subduction Zone Earthquakes, PEER Report 2023-01

Armin W. Stuedlein
Ali Dadashiserej
Amalesh Jana
2023

This report describes several advances in the cyclic failure assessment of silt soils with immediate and practical benefit to the geotechnical earthquake engineering profession. First, a database of cyclic loading test data is assembled, evaluated, and used to assess trends in the curvature of the CRR-N (cyclic resistance ratio - the number of equivalent cycles) relationship. This effort culminated in a plasticity index-dependent function which can be used to estimate the exponent b in the power law describing cyclic resistance, and may be used to estimate the cyclic resistance of silt...

Technical Background Report for Structural Analysis and Performance Assessment (PEER-CEA Project), PEER Report 2020-22

David P. Welch
Gregory G. Deierlein
2020

This report outlines the development of earthquake damage functions and comparative loss metrics for single-family wood-frame buildings with and without seismic retrofit of vulnerable cripple wall and stem wall conditions. The underlying goal of the study is to quantify the benefits of the seismic retrofit in terms of reduced earthquake damage and repair or reconstruction costs. The earthquake damage and economic losses are evaluated based on the FEMA P-58 methodology, which incorporates detailed building information and analyses to characterize the seismic hazard, structural...

Comparison of the Response of Small- and Large-Component Cripple Wall Specimens Tested under Simulated Seismic Loading (PEER-CEA Project), PEER Report 2020-21

Brandon Schiller
Tara Hutchinson
Kelly Cobeen
2020

This report is one of a series of reports documenting the methods and findings of a multi-year, multi-disciplinary project coordinated by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER and funded by the California Earthquake Authority (CEA). The overall project is titled “Quantifying the Performance of Retrofit of Cripple Walls and Sill Anchorage in Single-Family Wood-Frame Buildings,” henceforth referred to as the “PEER–CEA Project.”

The overall objective of the PEER–CEA Project is to provide scientifically based information (e.g., testing, analysis, and...

PEER Workshop on Liquefaction Susceptibility, PEER Report 2023-02

Armin W. Stuedlein
Besrat Alemu
T. Matthew Evans
Steven L. Kramer
Jonathan P. Stewart
Kristin Ulmer
Katerina Ziotopoulou
2023

Seismic ground failure potential from liquefaction is generally undertaken in three steps. First, a susceptibility evaluation determines if the soil in a particular layer is in a condition where liquefaction triggering could potentially occur. This is followed by a triggering evaluation to estimate the likelihood of triggering given anticipated seismic demands, environmental conditions pertaining to the soil layer (e.g., its depth relative to the ground water table), and the soil state. For soils where triggering can be anticipated, the final step...

Seismic Design and Detailing of Bridge Columns to Account for Ground-Motion Duration, PEER Report 2021-08

S. Mojtaba Alian Amiri
Mohamed A. Moustafa
David H. Sanders
2021

Devastating, long-duration earthquakes such as 2011 Tohoku, Japan, earthquake, and 2010 Maule, Chile, earthquake have proved the importance of considering the duration of ground motion in conducting a seismic demand assessment. This research focuses on using both analytical and experimental methods to study the effect of different design details—confinement spacing ratio and longitudinal bar debonding—and different reinforcement strategies—conventional and high-strength reinforcement—on the seismic response of reinforced concrete (RC) bridge columns under long-duration ground motions. In...

Parallel Level-Set DEM (LS-DEM) Development and Application to the Study of Deformation and Flow of Granular Media, PEER Report 2022-06

Peng Tan
Nicholas Sitar
2022

We present a systematic investigation of computational approaches to the modeling of granular
materials. Granular materials are ubiquitous in everyday life and in a variety of engineering and
industrial applications. Despite the apparent simplicity of the laws governing particle-scale interactions,
predicting the continuum mechanical response of granular materials still poses extraordinary
challenges. This is largely due to the complex history dependence resulting from continuous rearrangement
of the microstructure of granular material, as well as the mechanical interlocking...