Welcome to the University at Buffalo's NEES Equipment Site

The University at Buffalo is a home to a key equipment site, NEES@buffalo (UB-NEES), in the nationwide earthquake engineering collaboratory, the National Science Foundation's "George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation" (NEES). In this network, earthquake engineers and students located at different institutions around our nation and the world, are able to share resources, collaborate, and exploit new computational technologies.

The UB-NEES provides services to NSF sponsored projects and other projects approved by the NEEScomm Board of Directors. The UB-NEES facility features the following:

Two Earthquake Simulators, known also as Shake Tables:
- Two relocatable 7.0m x7.0m platforms with six-degrees-of-freedom, 50 tons payload each
A two-story uni-axial Shaking Table system used as Non-structural Component Simulator
A 175 m² Strong Reaction Wall and 340 m² Strong Testing Floor
A uni-axial Laminar Box for 1.0 g soil testing
Reconfigurable assemblies of Static and Dynamic Servo-controlled Actuators with advanced control systems (STS, Flextest, etc)
A High Performance Hydraulic Power Supply with a flow rate of 6000 liters per minute (1600 gallons per minute)
High speed wide band Local and Wide Area Gigabit Networks interfaced and supported by NEEScomm IT services
Tele-presence & Tele-operations capabilities for local and wide area collaborations in real-time
Advanced Dynamic, Pseudo-dynamic, and Static Testing Capabilities including a generic advanced procedure Real Time Dynamic Hybrid Testing (RTDHT)

A detailed description of the facility, its components, and procedures of use can be found in the Lab Manual.

What's New

NEES Adapt-Struct

Monday, August 30, 2010: at 9:00 am EST a Demonstaration test will be performed and webcast for our internet audience. Please, join us.

For more information, please, click here.

SEESL/NEES@Buffalo YouTube Channel

Thursday, May 20, 2010: A SEESL/NEES@Buffalo YouTube Channel has been created where you will be able to see videos and news coeverage of some the tests done here.

For more information, please, click here.

Large-Scale, Dual Shake Table Test of Precast Segmental Bridge

Monday, May 03, 2010: A 1/2.4 scale single-span precast segmental bridge will be tested on the adjacent re-locatable shake tables at the University at Buffalo. The objective of the test is to identify the response and evaluate the performance of precast segmental bridges when subjected to seismic loading. The large scale bridge model, designed according to the Accelerated Bridge Construction techniques, will be the first of its type ever performed in the United States.

For more information, please, go here.

NEESports: Large-Scale, Shake Table Test of a Container Crane

Monday, November 23, 2009:at 2:00 PM EST To get a better understanding of how container cranes respond during an earthquake, a 1/10th scale model of a container crane has been designed and will be tested on the shake table at the University at Buffalo. The objective of the test is to measure the response of the crane from small levels of shaking to those large enough to cause the test crane to collapse. The upcoming test will be the largest ever performed in the United States and the first shake table test in the world to test to collapse.

For more information, please, go here.

Hybrid Simulation of Steel Moment Frame to Collapse

Wednesday, July 29, 2009:at 8:00 AM EST, 21:00 JST, we will be conducting a geographically distributed hybrid simulation of a four story steel moment frame building subjected to the 1995 JR Takatori record at 100% scale. The building model is based on the four story steel moment frame building tested to collapse at E-Defense, Japan in September 2007.

For more information, please, go here.

UB �Science Exploration Day� 2009 at SEESL

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Approximately 40 Western New York high school students, participating in UB�s-23rd �Science Exploration Day� toured UB�s Structural Engineering and Earthquake Simulation Laboratory (SEESL), in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering (CSEE). They also observed a simulated earthquake, employing a �Mini-Shake Table�, subjecting a sub-scale 27-story building to a seismographic record from the 1995 Kobe Earthquake. For more information please go here.

UB-NEES Hosts NEES Board of Directors

August 14, 2008the UB-NEES site hosted a visit for the NEES Board of Directors who are holding their quarterly board meeting in Buffalo, N.Y. on August 15, 2008. The following eight Board Members attended the visit: Roberto Leon, John Bobbitt, Shirley Dyke, JoAnn Browning, Jim Myers, Julio Ramirez, Jim Ricles and Ken Stoke. Also in attendance were Dr. Joy Pauschke, NSF�s-NEES Program Director and Dr. Steve McCabe, CEO of NEESInc.
For more information click here