Next frontiers of innovation, discovery and learning in wind engineering: a cyberinfrastructure perspective

摘要: Wind-related catastrophes inflict enormous devastation on the built environment and result in a staggering number of fatalities, which may continue to rise in the future given the increase in exposure as population migrates towards the coasts. To better manage the impact of extreme wind events, given the heavy reliance on empirical and experimental data in the design process, a new paradigm is required utilizing shared resources and global collaborations. An engineering virtual organization (EVO) would enable such a paradigm shift by offering real-time shared access to geographically dispersed resources for more effective research and education to achieve improved understanding and modeling of wind effects on structures. This paper summarizes such a program recently launched by the authors to develop a prototype EVO. The goals of this initiative are (i) to establish and sustain such a virtual community for wind hazard mitigation;(ii) to enhance this community’s analysis and design capabilities to address next generation challenges posed by wind; and (iii) to facilitate education and training of the future workforce in the field. The steps toward the former goal have already been initiated through the collection of the field’s leading universities, organizations, firms and government agencies to form this prototype collaboratory and their commitments to contribute their resources. The latter two goals will be accomplished through the formation of a virtual organization utilizing cyberinfrastructure technologies to stitch these geographically dispersed e-analysis and design modules encompassing Database-Assisted