HR: 09:20h
AN: S21B-05 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: Can Seismic Early-Warning Information Help Engineers?: The Benefits to, and the Information Requirements for Structural Control and Monitoring Applications
AU: * Smyth, A W
EM: smyth@civil.columbia.edu
AF: Columbia University Dept. of Civil Engineering & Engineering Mechanics, 610 S.W. Mudd Bldg., New York, NY 10027 United States
AB: The potential benefits of advance-warning information of an earthquake event, on the order of seconds prior to seismic wave arrival, is explored in the context of structural engineering loss reduction. Structural control technologies have been developed, principally over the last two decades, to reduce the vibration response of structural systems during transient dynamic loading such as earthquake ground motions. A brief overview of the state-of-the-art in structural control is presented. Although not typically considered, there are possible control algorithm-level benefits to having \emph{a priori} information on the magnitude, spectral content and duration of the transient loading. In addition, there are potential benefits of advance knowledge for the actuator and sensor hardware that implement the control. In addition to structural control applications, the modeling and damage detection of structural systems is of particular interest to engineers for whom an earthquake event presents a rare high-level loading and response dataset from which structural health can potentially be inferred. Increasingly, large arrays of wireless sensor are proposed for this monitoring purpose. Early-warning information could potentially be used to wake-up sensors from a low-power mode to a full-power mode at which they can record and wirelessly communicate a large volume of data. While the potential of incorporating early-warning information for structural engineering loss-reduction measures may be attractive, it is important to note that one can of course not predict the location of future events relative to a structure of interest, and therefore one should not design systems which exclusively depend on early-warning information for basic life safety or other performance criteria. Rather, the goal should be to design measures whose performance can be \emph{enhanced} with early-warning information.
DE: 7212 Earthquake ground motions and engineering
DE: 7223 Seismic hazard assessment and prediction
DE: 7299 General or miscellaneous
SC: Seismology [S]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting