A Reference Data Model for Neesgrid Shake Table Experiments

NEES (the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation) is a national, networked resource for next-generation experimental earthquake engineering research and education in the United States. The goal of NEES is to support open access to and use of NEES’s facilities and data by the earthquake engineering community. The system infrastructure to support the NEES activities is the NEESgrid which is intended as a distributed virtual “collaboratory” cyberinfrastructure for earthquake experimentation and simulation. Building on grid technologies, this collaboratory will allow researchers to gain remote, shared access to experimental equipment and data. Tools are being developed to support the sharing, access, and utilization of the NEESgrid data repository, and thus enhance efficient communication among the researchers in earthquake engineering. One of the key ingredients required to bridge between the data repository and the experimental users is the development of data models that provide the “semantic” information describing the project and experimental data. This paper describes the current effort in developing a reference data model for NEESgrid shake table experiments.