[Announce-test] NHERI SimCenter releases four new software tools

[announce-test at designsafe-ci.org]

APPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATORS AND RESEARCHERS IN THE NATURAL HAZARDS COMMUNITY

The goal of the NHERI SimCenter is to provide the natural hazards
engineering research and education community with access to next-generation
computational modeling and simulation software tools, user support, and
educational materials needed to advance the nation’s capability to simulate
the impact of natural hazards on structures, lifelines, and communities.

As a natural hazards tool developer, the SimCenter enables leaders to make
informed decisions about the need for, and effectiveness of, potential
mitigation strategies.

The NHERI SimCenter has just released three research tools and its third
educational tool that support natural hazards engineering. Details of the
tools and apps are below.
Learning Tools

The educational tools target undergraduate and graduate students, providing
these students with the opportunity to investigate the impact of various
modeling parameters and assumptions about system behavior and natural
hazard demand on the behavior of the engineered system. A teacher in a high
school engineering course could also use the tools to introduce these
concepts about modeling, system behavior, and hazard demand to their
students
Download the *Earthquake Versus Wind* application app and user manual from
the SimCenter website
<https://simcenter.designsafe-ci.org/learning-tools/evw-application/>.Earthquake
Versus Wind Application

EVW — The Earthquake Versus Wind application allows the user to compare the
responses of buildings subjected to earthquake and wind loading. The user
models the building including floor weights, story properties, and geometry
to observe structural dynamics in a side-by-side loading comparison.
Earthquakes are selected from a series of predefined ground-motion
acceleration records or user-provided motions. Wind forces are determined
at floor levels using a stochastic process that takes into account gust
speed, exposure category, drag coefficient, and building height and width.
Building dynamic properties, base shear, and moment diagrams are produced
along with the visual time-history response in the graphical user interface
 Research ToolsDownload the *Computational Wind Engineering – Uncertainty
Quantification* tool app and user manual from the SimCenter website
<https://simcenter.designsafe-ci.org/research-tools/cwe-uq-application/>.Computational
Wind Engineering – Uncertainty Quantification Tool

CWE-UQ — The Computational Wind Engineering – Uncertainty Quantification
tool is computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis software based on
OpenFOAM for analyzing the effect of wind on rigid body structures and
attendant response.

It interfaces with HPC resources at DesignSafe-CI to perform the CFD
calculations and alleviate computational overhead from the user’s local
machine. The ability to include user-defined inflow conditions and future
releases that account for uncertainty quantification are intended to
support and enhance CWE research.


Download the *Uncertainty Quantification Finite Element*application, user
manual, and see the video tutorial from the SimCenter website
<https://simcenter.designsafe-ci.org/research-tools/uqfem-application/>.Uncertainty
Quantification Finite Element Application

uqFEM — The Uncertainty Quantification Finite Element application advances
the use of uncertainty quantification in the field of natural hazards
engineering by combining existing finite element (FE) applications with
uncertainty quantification (UQ) applications behind a simple user interface.

Using this app, an engineer can apply UQ methods to a new or existing FE
model by identifying and flagging the random variables of interest. To
overcome the issue of computational overhead, which typically precludes
these types of probabilistic analyses from being performed, the user has
the option of specifying that the simulations take place on HPC resources,
such as the TACC Stampede supercomputer available through DesignSafe-CI,
instead of executing them on their local machine.


Download the *Regional Earthquake Workflow* source code and documentaiton
from the SimCenter website
<https://simcenter.designsafe-ci.org/research-tools/earthquake-workflow/>.Regional
Earthquake Workflow and Testbed

The Regional Earthquake Workflow is the first demonstration of the
SimCenter’s Application Framework that supports natural hazards engineering
research. The extensible framework is next-generation software aimed at
advancing regional-scale simulations.

The application’s framework includes specifications for building
information models, hazard events, loss calculations, and the APIs that
interface between other applications that perform simulations. While the
workflow is designed for HPC, a local version supports development and
testing.

The Regional Earthquake Workflow application is used to study the effects
of earthquakes on society at the regional scale.

One demonstration of the Workflow is the SimCenter’s Earthquake Testbed,
which evaluates a M7.0 earthquake’s impact on the San Francisco Bay Area.
Accounting for the region’s 1.8 million buildings, damage and loss for the
region are calculated from fragilities and software provided through the
user community.

Although the testbed is comparable to similar regional hazard scenarios,
this one is intended to inspire the user community’s adaptation and
expansion of the workflow into their research.

To learn more about the testbed, expanding workflow capabilities, or
extending to other hazards, please contact NHERI-SimCenter at berkeley.edu.
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