ACM TechNews

NSF Awards Carnegie Mellon's Jacobo Bielak $1.6 Million for Earthquake Research

Carnegie Mellon News (01/15/08) Swaney, Chriss

The National Science Foundation PetaApps program has awarded a $1.6 million grant over the next four years to Carnegie Mellon University professor Jacobo Bielak to develop earthquake computer simulations that would lower the risk for large urban coastal cities. "These simulations will provide unprecedented detailed knowledge of how an urban system performs in a large earthquake and what is needed for improving disaster planning and preparation," Bielak says. "This new grant will give us the resources to create three-dimensional models that can simulate how earthquakes impact buildings, bridges, and other critical urban infrastructures." Bielak has worked with CMU professor David O'Hallaron and researchers at the Southern California Earthquake Center over the past 10 years to develop more sophisticated computer models of earthquake behavior. The new research will demand more of current hardware and software programs. Bielak plans to integrate the ground motion of large sedimentary basins with a number of large databases in an attempt to study how large scale earthquakes impact buildings, transportation systems, and other key underground infrastructure.

http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2008/January/jan15_quakeresearch.shtml

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