Minutes of the Forum Sessions
Day
One Discussion Session
March 2nd, 2000
Chairs: W. Hayes and D. J. Inman
Discussion in the afternoon
session was conducted by providing commentary on each
of the talks given throughout the day. A summary of
the comments is provided below, for each of the
papers:
G. C. Lee:
The focus on response to
user’s needs in this work, as opposed to
generating a new technology and subsequently
fitting it to an application, was seen as a very
positive aspect of this paper. There was further
agreement that there is too much emphasis on
devices, in that researchers create a device and
then apply it. A more rational process is to
identify the needs of the structure and then
create a device to address this need.
I. Juran:
The author suggested that
contractors should be responsible for the
performance of their system, not for meeting a
set of design criteria. This was well received by
the group, as this would encourage contractors to
take more interest in new technology and using
them to find better ways to address the
performance needs of geotechnical systems. It was
also suggested in discussion that better
publicity of the issues in earthquake engineering
is needed, in order to generate more support for
exploring this area.
M. Feng:
The audience enjoyed many
aspects of this work, including that it is quite
"avant garde" in this field, and that
the column jacket retrofitting technology has the
capability to be applied to a wide range of
systems, such as pipelines. Further, the work
incorporates interdisciplinary researchers,
industrial partners, and government agencies. By
getting this full range of engineers involved at
the early stages, the technology is more likely
to be adopted in practice. The interdisciplinary
nature and wider applicability of the research
generated discussion of the need to break down
barriers between Civil Engineering and other
disciplines. There exists a need to develop an
approach to such new areas in the framework of
the technology, not in the framework of specific
disciplines. It was further pointed out that
Civil Engineering researchers will need to
continue to expand their work in this way, or
risk losing students to more challenging and
relevant fields. The major need of this work that
was cited by the group was addressing how the
technology would be implemented in practice.
Y. Shimizu:
This work was praised
extensively for its aggressive advance in the
state of the art in implementing sensor
technology in gas pipelines. Some of the issues
that arose in discussion were the need to try
combining networks for gas with those for water,
electric, or other lifelines, rather than leaving
each industry to take care of its own technology.
Such a combination would generally require a
consortium of members from each of these
industries, as well as a full understanding of
the legal implications of sharing the sensor
data. Finally, it was suggested that the authors
provide some economic analysis of this work. This
would help the group to address important
economic issues when requesting resources for
earthquake engineering research.
M. Shinozuka:
The audience applauded the
fact that the researchers addressed the social,
economic, and planning aspects of this work, as
this is the best way to get policy makers
involved and interested in this work. The other
issue in getting these policy makers involved is
to demonstrate the feasibility of using this
reverse engineering in the decision-making
process. A positive aspect of the research is
that it is very cost-effective, which will be
attractive in developing policy. It was suggested
that we begin including social scientists in this
research at this stage, in order to help provide
incentives to move this discipline forward.
Finally, one member of the audience suggested
that PEER and PG&E are performing tests to
obtain fragility curves for transformers, which
may be of interest to these researchers.
R. Ghanem:
All agreed that this is a
young technology that has tremendous promise for
the future. SAR has distinct advantages in that
it can penetrate clouds and that it has improved
resolution over traditional aerial photography.
It is important that the integration of this
technology with land-based technology be
addressed. It was further pointed out that this
work has great potential to direct emergency
response and relief; FEMA’s distribution of
resources after the Northridge earthquake was
proposed as an example of how there is room for
improvement in this area.
C. H. Loh:
The use of data from the
Chi-Chi earthquake was seen as an excellent
example of how quickly we can gather information
from an earthquake to demonstrate the benefits of
new technology. Further, the data obtained from
this earthquake provides a great opportunity to
perform "blind tests" to check bridge
and structural damage. It was suggested that the
authors add comments regarding the benefits and
economic costs of this technology.
T. Sato:
This work is extremely
challenging, and the audience agreed that there
exists a need to address the complexities of
controlling non-linear structures. The group also
appreciated that this research addressed
prevention of earthquake hazard, as much of the
current work is focussed on response to
earthquake hazard. This work clearly fills an
important purpose in this area. Some suggestions
were to indicate results that can be used for
disaster mitigation and how they can be used. The
author indicated that the results can identify
damage time during the earthquake and that they
can identify the weak point of the structure.
Day
Two Discussion Session
March 3rd, 2000
Chairs: L. Lund and A. Zeizel
These minutes are organized
based on the comments on each paper:
On Mizushina Paper
Shinozuka was very interested
in the collection of data from the customer meters.
From the viewpoint of SCADA, Shinozuka wanted to know
if it was truly a SCADA.
Mizushina acknowledged that he
neglected to describe how his data collection system
fits into the SCADA system.
Wiesman pointed out that the
AMR (Automatic Meter Reading) community deals with
similar issues raised in the paper. He listed several
companies that have experience in the AMR. He also
mentioned that SCADA has a lot of similarities with
the AMR concept. AMR has traditionally been involved
in this for revenue collection, and that the author
should investigate similarities.
Lund: asked how the Hamamatsu
experiment was organized.
Mizushina explained that his
organization is called TAO (Telecommunications Adv.
Organization). The Japanese Ministry of Post and
Telecommunications invites proposals for new
applications in telecommunications. They funded this
5 years ago. There are 30 similar research centers
funded by the Ministry of Telecommunications.
Zeizel wanted to know if this
system would be applicable in other cities.
Mizushina still hasn’t
finished in Hamamatsu, so agencies have not been
fully convinced.
Shinozuka wonders how they
enticed customers to install the devices.
Mizushina says that this was
not a big problem.
McDaniel Paper:
Lund: wanted to know about the
time frame, staffing, organization, etc. of enhanced
system.
McDaniel: wanted to simplify
administrative organization. Three staff members are
required to run servers and provide support and the
same applies to instrumentation mechanics. Funding
for the first phase will come out of savings from
cancelled upgrade to the old system. It is a $5
million project spread out over 5 years.
Zeizel wanted to know if other
hazards were considered.
McDaniel hasn’t had much
of a problem with debris flow or flooding. However,
wind storms have been a problem. He is looking into
wireless communication for the system. Large open
reservoirs in the Santa Monica mountains are getting
by-pass pipelines so this would avert problem with
mudslides into reservoirs.
Lund wondered about the
conservation elements of the emergency plan.
McDaniel expects a 70%
reduction of water for short periods of time if there
is a trunk line break.
Nakao Paper:
(Nakao was not present for discussion)
Shinozuka mentioned that Nakao
indicated that SCADA was very useful during the
Northridge earthquake, but wasn’t clear on how
(in some concrete ways).
McDaniel believes the system
isn’t that capable of control. But managers can
see the whole system.
Zeizel: wanted to know about
the interface between water and power needs.
McDaniel said that there is
already coordination. This is done by a radio and
telephone system.
Wiesman Paper:
Zeizel: wondered about the
collocation of different types of utilities.
Wiesman said that older
infrastructures were not planned well (rather
haphazardly). If one is building a new
infrastructure, then one could plan SCADA systems
etc. to be collocated. Funding limits rate of
progress.
Eguchi Paper:
Lund asked regarding
liquefaction in Turkey whether ground water maps can
be incorporated in order to focus areas.
Zeizel: thinks that there
should be a lot of on-ground verification.
Eguchi thinks that
Ghanem’s work is valuable. Believes that the
repeat pass time is a problem which is very important
… can be overcome with additional satellites.
Shinozuka notes that SAR is
just one technology. Notes that "Data
Fusion" is still important. DOD technology may
help (XPATCHT). This allows any resolution in
simulation. This tells you what your requirements
must be for damage detection.
Zeizel said there should be a
linkage between us and DOD.
Hayes mentioned that one should
contact Darryl Heard at USGS on this point.
Bardet: mentions that the
military was used for the Turkey reconnaissance trip.
They were given estimates of casualties. He calls for
midrange technologies (i.e. not too close and not too
far away).
Eguchi mentioned that airborne
systems would be good. The SAR data is from airborne
source. LIDAR also gives better resolution, but is
very expensive.
Bardet said that he agrees that
"Before" pictures should be of better
resolution so that good comparisons can be made.
Craig Davis wanted to see if
any baseline studies have been done, i.e. have 2
photos been compared with no damage.
Eguchi mentioned that a good
example was a study of Las Vegas area that studied
the population growth. Denver also has a lot of
available data for it because many of the sensing
companies are located there.
Eguchi would like to know what
the role of government is.
Hayes said that there is a lack
of champions.
Zeizel said that the Federal
Government needs to put funding to this area, but
believes that there needs to be more public private
collaboration.
Shinozuka gave some closing
remarks and wrap-up.
