PEER Reports

PEER Reports

Two-Dimensional Debris-Fluid-Structure Interaction with the Particle Finite Element Method, PEER Report 2024-04

Minjie Zhu
Michael H. Scott
2024

In addition to tsunami wave loading, tsunami-driven debris can cause significant damage to coastal infrastructure and critical bridge lifelines. Using numerical simulations to predict loads imparted by debris on structures is necessary to supplement the limited number of physical experiments of in-water debris loading. To supplement SPH-FEM (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics-Finite Element Method) simulations described in a companion PEER report, fluid-structure-debris simulations using the Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM) show the debris modeling capabilities in OpenSees. A new contact...

An International Workshop on Large-Scale Shake Table Testing for the Assessment of Soil-Foundation-Structure System Response for Seismic Safety of DOE Nuclear Facilities, A Virtual Workshop – 17-18 May 2021, PEER Report 2024-03

Ramin Motamed
David McCallen
Swasti Saxena
2024

Aging infrastructure within the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) nuclear facilities poses a major challenge to their resiliency against natural phenomenon hazards. Examples of mission-critical facilities located in regions of high seismicity can be found at a number of NNSA sites including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Nevada National Security Site. Most of the nation’s currently operating nuclear facilities have already reached their operating lifetime, and most currently operating...

Seismic Performance of Isolated Bridges Under Beyond Design Basis Shaking, PEER Report 2024-02

Claudio Sepulveda
Ricardo Bustamante
Gilberto Mosqueda
2024

Seismically isolated highway bridges are expected to provide limited service under a safety evaluation-level ground shaking with minimal to moderate damage. The behavior under shaking beyond design considerations, corresponding to a large return period seismic hazard, is not well understood and could induce significant damage. In these rare events, the seismic isolation system can be subjected to displacement demands beyond its design capacity, resulting in failure of the bearings, exceeding the clearance and pounding against the abutment backwalls, or damage propagating to other primary...

Expert Panel Recommendations for Ergodic Site Amplification in Central and Eastern North America, PEER Report 2017-04

Jonathan P. Stewart
Grace A. Parker
Joseph P. Harmon
Gail M. Atkinson
David M. Boore
Robert B. Darragh
Walter J. Silva
Youssef M.A. Hashash
2017

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) national seismic hazard maps have historically been produced for a reference site condition of VS30 = 760 m/sec (where VS30 is time averaged shear wave velocity in the upper 30 m of the site). The resulting ground motions are modified for five site classes (A-E) using site amplification factors for peak acceleration and ranges of short- and long-oscillator periods. As a result of Project 17 recommendations, this practice is being revised: (1) maps will be produced for a range of site conditions (as represented by V...

Response Modification of Structures with Supplemental Rotational Inertia, PEER Report 2024-01

Gholamreza Moghimi
Nicos Makris
2024

Tall, multistory, buildings are becoming increasingly popular in large cities as a result of growing
urbanization trends (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2018). As cities
continue to grow, many of them along the coasts of continents which are prone to natural hazards,
the performance of tall, flexible buildings when subjected to natural hazards is a pressing issue
with engineering relevance. The performance of structures when subjected to dynamic loads can
be enhanced with various response modification strategies which have been traditionally...

NGA-East Ground-Motion Models for the U.S. Geological Survey National Seismic Hazard Maps, PEER Report 2017-03

Christine A. Goulet
Yousef Bozorgnia
Nicolas Kuehn
Linda Al Atik
Robert R. Youngs
Robert W. Graves
Gail M. Atkinson
2017

The purpose of this report is to provide a set of ground motion models (GMMs) to be considered by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for their National Seismic Hazard Maps (NSHMs) for the Central and Eastern U.S. (CEUS). These interim GMMs are adjusted and modified from a set of preliminary models developed as part of the Next Generation Attenuation for Central and Eastern North-America (CENA) project (NGA-East). The NGA-East objective was to develop a new ground-motion characterization (GMC) model for the CENA region. The GMC model consists of a set of GMMs for median and standard...

U.S.—New Zealand— Japan International Workshop, Liquefaction-Induced Ground Movement Effects, University of California, Berkeley, California, 2-4 November 2016, PEER Report 2017-02

Jonathan D. Bray
Ross W. Boulanger
Misko Cubrinovski
Kohji Tokimatsu
Steven L. Kramer
Thomas O’Rourke
Ellen Rathje
Russell A. Green
Peter K. Robertson
Christine Z. Beyzaei
2017

There is much to learn from the recent New Zealand and Japan earthquakes. These earthquakes produced differing levels of liquefaction-induced ground movements that damaged buildings, bridges, and buried utilities. Along with the often spectacular observations of infrastructure damage, there were many cases where well-built facilities located in areas of liquefaction-induced ground failure were not damaged. Researchers are working on characterizing and learning from these observations of both poor and good performance.

The “Liquefaction-Induced Ground Movements Effects” workshop...

PEER Annual Report 2016, PEER Report 2017-01

Khalid Mosalam
Amarnath Kasalanati
Grace Kang
2017

The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) is a multi-institutional research and education center with headquarters at the University of California, Berkeley. PEER’s mission is to develop, validate, and disseminate performance-based seismic design technologies for buildings and infrastructure to meet the diverse economic and safety needs of owners and society.

The year 2016 began with a change of leadership at PEER. On January 1, Professor Khalid Mosalam became the new PEER Director as Professor Stephen Mahin completed his 6- year term. Also in early 2016, Dr. Yousef...

Central and Eastern North America Ground-Motion Characterization - NGA-East Final Report, PEER Report 2018-08

Christine Goulet
Yousef Bozorgnia
Norman Abrahamson
Nicolas Kuehn
Linda Al Atik
Robert Youngs
Robert Graves
Gail Atkinson
2018

This document is the final project report of the Next Generation Attenuation for Central and Eastern North America (CENA) project (NGA-East). The NGA-East objective was to develop a new ground-motion characterization (GMC) model for the CENA region. The GMC model consists of a set of new ground-motion models (GMMs) for median and standard deviation of ground motions and their associated weights to be used with logic-trees in probabilistic seismic hazard analyses (PSHA). NGA-East is a large multidisciplinary project coordinated by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER),...

An Empirical Model for Fourier Amplitude Spectra using the NGA-West2 Database, PEER Report 2018-07

Jeff Bayless
Norman A. Abrahamson
2018

An empirical ground-motion model (GMM) for shallow crustal earthquakes in California and Nevada based on the NGA-West2 database [Ancheta et al. 2014] is presented. Rather than the traditional response spectrum GMM, this model is developed for the smoothed effective amplitude spectrum (EAS) as defined by PEER [Goulet et al. 2018]. The EAS is the orientation- independent horizontal component Fourier amplitude spectrum (FAS) of ground acceleration. The model is developed using a database dominated by California earthquakes, but takes advantage of crustal earthquake data worldwide to constrain...