Purpose

On February 6, 2016, an ML-6.6 earthquake on the Richter magnitude scale occurred in the Meinong District of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. The earthquake caused catastrophic damage to Tainan city, including a significant number of collapsed and severely damaged buildings and 117 deaths. The collapsed buildings showed the structural disadvantages of irregularities and soft stories. In Taiwan, near-fault effects on building structures are a critically important issue. The high performance of the shaking table in NCREE Tainan Laboratory is capable of reproducing the characteristics of near-fault ground motions. A blind prediction contest is held in order to contribute to the development of computational prediction of seismic responses and efficient modeling techniques for reinforced concrete buildings involving near-fault effects and “soft/weak” 1st story condition. The goal is to promote efficient seismic performance assessment methods for reinforced concrete buildings. Accordingly, shaking-table tests of a 1/2-scale multi-story reinforced concrete building model will be carried out. Each of the participating teams shall predict the structural responses before and after the tests, and the closest prediction to the test results will be awarded.

Because the actually achieved table motion histories will be obtained later during the course of the testing and so are the observed structural responses on the shaking table, the contest is then separated into two stages:

Stage 1: Pre-test blind predictions based on anticipated earthquake loadings.

Stage 2: Post-test predictions using the actual table loadings. The same analytical model as that used for Stage 1 is to be used again for Stage 2 predictions.

Judge and Acting Committee

The contest is a part of the NCREE reinforce concrete research team project, and will be carried out by two working groups (WGs) of the team: The Analysis Method and Verification Working Group (WG) will do all the tasks including announcement, distribution of data, answering questions, and judgment. The Building Seismic Behavior Simulation WG will reduce the experimentally recorded data into the seismic responses of the seven-story building model induced by near-fault ground motions.

Qualification of the Participants

The participants can be either an individual or a team, but one individual can be involved in only one team or as an individual. Each team consists of four members at most. A member of the aforementioned WGs or a person who has an access to test specifications prior to the official announcement can still submit his/her prediction results, but is not eligible to compete for awards.

Category

The contest is categorized by the types of participants. Winners will be selected for each of the following categories:

  1. Researchers (including students)
  2. Practicing Engineers

Analysis may be carried out by (but not limited to) finite element analysis with shell and/or solid elements, or 3D/2D-frame analysis using fiber elements and/or beam-column line elements with plastic hinges.

Each category will have at least two winners according to the type of participants. All winners will receive awards according to Section 10.