The NHERI RAPID Facility: Enabling the Next Generation of Natural Hazards Reconnaissance
The NHERI post disaster, rapid response research (or "RAPID" facility, headquartered at the University of Washington (UW) is a collaboration between UW, Oregon State University, Virginia Tech, and the University of Florida. The RAPID facility will enable natural hazard researchers to conduct next generation quick response research through reliable acquisition and community sharing of high quality, post disaster data sets that will enable characterization of civil infrastructure performance under natural hazard loads, evaluation of the effectiveness of current and previous design methodologies, understanding of socio economic dynamics, calibration of computational models used to predict civil infrastructure component and system response, and development of solutions for resilient communities. The facility will provide investigators with the hardware, software and support services needed to collect, process and assess perishable interdisciplinary data following extreme natural hazard events. Support to the natural hazards research community will be provided through training and educational activities, field deployment services, and by promoting public engagement with science and engineering. Specifically, the RAPID facility is undertaking the following strategic activities: (1) acquiring, maintaining, and operating state of the art data collection equipment; (2) developing and supporting mobile applications to support interdisciplinary field reconnaissance; (3) providing advisory services and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, Oregon State University Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering, University of Washington Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida Wartman J, Berman J, Olsen M, Irish J, Miles S, Gurley K, Lowes L, and Bostrom A. The NHERI RAPID Facility: Enabling the Next Generation of Natural Hazards Reconnaissance. Proceedings of the 11 National Conference in Earthquake Engineering, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA. 2018. basic logistics support for research missions; (4) facilitating the systematic archiving, processing and visualization of acquired data in DesignSafe CI; (5) training a broad user base through workshops and other activities; and (6) engaging the public through citizen science, as well as through community outreach and education. The facility commenced operations in September 2016 and will begin field deployments beginning in September 2018. This presentation will provide an overview of the vision for the RAPID facility, the equipment that will be available for use, the facility's operations, and opportunities for user training and facility use. The presentation will also demonstrate the capabilities of the facility by providing examples of reconnaissance data collection methods, data analysis and data archiving, from the 2016 Kaikoura Earthquake in New Zealand.