This is the second in a series on National Science Foundation earthquake-related research. The NSF-funded project, called SimMillennium, is directed by professors David Culler and James Demmel. Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Sun and Nortel Networks have made significant corporate donations to the project. SimMillennium is leading to improved algorithms and programming environments not only for seismic modeling, but also for simulations in such fields as astrophysics, economics and civil engineering.
Hospitals pose unique challenges because they house sophisticated diagnostic and treatment systems.
At the NSF-supported Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, based at the University at Buffalo, N.Y., a team of engineers and social scientists is taking on the challenge. They are identifying hospitals' vulnerabilities to seismic events, using data from the 1994 Northridge, Calif., earthquake and the results from experimental and analytical research. Then, they will evaluate advanced retrofit technologies and new structural designs and determine their relative costs. California and New York state health officials are participating in the studies. Lessons learned in the hospital study can be used to improve the performance of less complicated critical facilities as well.