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US-PRC Protocol Meeting Held in Hawaii

Delegations from China and the U.S. met in Honolulu, Hawaii on July 28, 2004 to review progress of existing joint research activities and to discuss possible joint future projects between China and the U.S. under the US-PRC Protocol (Annex III) agreement.

Huijuan Wu, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Construction and S.C. Liu, NSF Program Director, opened the meeting by citing past successes of the program and offering ideas for future collaboration. MCEER's George Lee then discussed the history of the protocol, which has provided an important mechanism for collaborative research in earthquake engineering between the two countries since 1980.

The development of an initiative on smart structures for earthquake hazard mitigation and the establishment of a state-of-the-art sensor laboratory and testbed campaigns (in the laboratory and in the field) were key topics of discussion. China is developing smart structure technology for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and there are opportunities for collaboration between the two countries (see program announcement on page 9).

The meeting concluded with both delegations agreeing to pursue three major activities in the next year:

Attendees

U.S. Participants Michel Bruneau MCEER, University at Buffalo Ian Buckle Center for Civil Engineering Earthquake Research, University of Nevada Reno Amr Elnashai Mid-America Earthquake Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Gregory Fenves Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California at Berkeley George Lee MCEER, University at Buffalo S.C. Liu National Science Foundation Jack Moehle Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley

PRC Participants Shu Jia Ministry of Construction Xilin Lu Research Institute of Structural Engineering & Disaster Reduction, Tongji University Xiaozhai Qi Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration Yayong Wang China Academy of Building Research Zifa Wang Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration Huijuan Wu Ministry of Construction Lingxin Zhang Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration