Date: May 12, 2003
Place: National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management, Tsukuba, Japan
Attendees: U.S. Side -- Steven McCabe (Chairman) NSF
K Thirumalai DOT
Gary Dargush SUNY
Japan Side -- Masaomi Teshigawara (Chairman) BRI
Keiichi Ohtani (Chairman) NIED
Takashi Kaminosono NILIM
Isao Nishiyama BRI
Hiroshi Fukuyama BRI
1. Objective and Scope of Work
(1) Objective
The objective of the task committee is to enhance the development and implementation of innovative and new 1) materials; 2) enabling technologies; 3) evaluation, analysis, design, construction and maintenance methods; through cooperative individual and organized and networked analytical and experimental approaches for the next-generation building and infrastructure systems.
Opportunities during the next few years include experimental observations on the performance of model and near full-size structures using large scale testing facilities and networked earthquake engineering experimental facilities, and the development of innovative technologies and approaches to address the newly obtained analytical conclusions and observed experimental evidences and to formulate various performance based engineering guidelines for building and infrastructure systems.
(2) Scope of Work
a) Enhancement of exchange of information and personnel.
b) Coordinate joint research including the utilizing experimental facilities.
c) Coordinated development of database, test procedures, guidelines for test result interpretation and application.
d) Development of new materials and technologies for condition assessment, retrofit of existing buildings and design of new buildings.
e) Conduct joint workshops and joint meetings to identify research opportunities, new projects, and make recommendation for UJNR Panel.
2. Accomplishments
(1) A new US-side task committee B was established, with George Lee and Steven McCabe as co-chairs and six members (Fu-Kuo Chang of Stanford University; Peter Chang of University of Maryland; Mete Sozen of Purdue University; B.F. Spencer of University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, K. Thirumalai of Department of Transportation and Ming Wang of University of Illinois at Chicago).
(2) The Third Joint Technical Coordinating Committee (JTCC) Meeting of the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Research Program on Smart Structural Systems (Auto adaptive Media Applied to Civil Infrastructures) was held at the Building Research Institute (BRI) in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan on October 19, 2002. Fifteen U.S. and ten Japanese JTCC members, plus 22 observers participated in the meeting.
(3) The construction of buildings for E-Defense (3-D Full-scale Earthquake Testing Facility) is almost completed (95%).
(4) Construction of the NEES sites is progressing; the system will be operational on October 1, 2004. The NEES Consortium has been officially established as of late January 2003.
3. Future Plans
(1) Task Committee B will continue to support the development of joint activities relative to NEES (Network of Earthquake Engineering Simulation).
(2) Task Committee B will continue to plan for the establishment of a US-Japan Coordinated research plan to accelerate the NEES program in the US and E-Defense and other research equipments in Japan for performance-based design, focusing on building functions, and health monitoring.
(3) Task Committee B will recommend an establishment of a US-Japan planning committee to make a long-term US-Japan cooperative research program, in which cooperation between U.S. and Japan within NEES, E-Defense and other research equipments is essential. Professor M. Sozen is nominated as a coordinator for the US-side and Building Research Institute will act as a Japan-side coordinating Institute. It will be proposed that the first workshop should be held by the beginning of October 2003.
(4) Task Committee B will support the activity of new task committee F (ADVANCED INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY FOR DISASTER PREVENTION AND PUBLIC HEALTH EVALUATION) through cooperative activities that are common to both task committees.
4. Others
AIJ has decided to honor Dr. S. C. Liu with "The Appreciation Prize of Architectural Institute of Japan, 2003", which is the special prize for non-members who have given an excellent contribution to the architecture. His achievement is laying the foundation for and support of pioneering research cooperation between the U.S. and Japan in the broad area of Earthquake Disaster Mitigation over two decades, that is supported by UJNR.