ISEE: Internet-based Simulation for Earthquake Engineering

This paper presents an ongoing research effort to develop an Internet-based environment, called ISEE(Internet-based Simulation for Earthquake Engineering), for collaborative networked structural experiments among geographically distributed structural laboratories. The research effort is a joint one between National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering(NCREE) and Department of Civil Engineering at National Taiwan University. The first stage of the ISEE development focuses on the realization of collaborative networked pseudo dynamic tests. Two approaches, the Database Approach and the Application Protocol Approach, have been employed to provide different solutions for network communication as well as collaborative framework in ISEE. This work presents the ISEE environment for collaborative networked structural experiments among geographically distributed structural laboratories. Several networked pseudo dynamic tests have been conducted to investigate the feasibility and efficiency of ISEE. Based on these test results, the feasibility of ISEE for collaborative networked tests is confirmed. Although the efficiency of ISEE requires more thorough investigation, the results obtained so far show reasonable network performance for the networked pseudo dynamic tests among laboratories located on two sides of Pacific Oceans.