December 2016
Lehigh University’s NHERI Experimental Facility hosted a 1 and ½-day Research Workshop on Monday, December 5th and Tuesday, December 6th at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. The workshop was entitled: Researchers Workshop: Advanced Simulation for Natural Hazards Mitigation.
The objectives of the workshop were:
- to disseminate information on the use of the NHERI Lehigh Experimental Facility (EF) to conduct state-of-the-art research in natural hazards mitigation;
- provide a platform to disseminate knowledge on the recent advances in the field;
- identify the grand challenges and the role of the NHERI program in addressing these challenges;
- facilitate sharing of ideas and research collaboration among the workshop participants; and,
- identify and develop opportunities to utilize the NHERI Lehigh EF.
The workshop included technical presentations by researchers and experts of the field on the following three thematic sessions: (i) Large Scale Experimental Simulation; (ii) Computational Modeling for Real-Time Hybrid Simulation; and, (iii) Example Past Projects Performed at Lehigh. The presentations were complemented by an open discussion session among workshop participants led by a moderator to identify and discuss emerging areas, advances, grand challenges, and research opportunities in natural hazards mitigation. Additionally, operational aspects of the NHERI Lehigh EF, along with proposal preparation guidelines for EF utilization were included. A tour of the NHERI Lehigh EF with an experimental demonstration of a large-scale damper characterization test and real-time hybrid simulation were included in the workshop to provide the participants with a feel for the capabilities of the facility.