NSF NEES MAST Lab Augmentation: Development of PsD Capabilities and Enhanced Display

This award provides funding to the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities (UMN), to upgrade the experimental capabilities of the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES), A System for Multi-Axial Sub-assemblage Testing (MAST) facility at UMN that will be operated by NEES Consortium, Inc., as a national shared use facility during FY 2005 - FY 2014. The requested equipment provides Pseudo-dynamic testing capability for the UMN NEES site, and was selected based on recommendations of the site visit teams for annual review and input from earthquake engineering researchers interested in using this equipment site. The scope of work includes developing a local pseudo-dynamic server that will control ramp-and-hold pseudo-dynamic testing as well as continuous pseudo dynamic testing. These added features will enable NEES researchers to conduct near Real-Time testing and slow continuous pseudo- dynamic testing including sub-structuring in conjunction with the existing 6-dof capability of MAST. This capability was not provided at this site under the original cooperative agreement CMS-0086602.

This equipment will be available to the earthquake engineering research community through the NEES Consortium, Inc., UMN NEES facility. This award is funded by the NSF NEES Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) project and is a component of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP).