High Performance Computing for Regional Building Seismic Damage Simulation

Modern cities are becoming integrated systems that consist of a high density of population and buildings. Once they are hit by earthquakes, the damage or collapse of buildings will result in huge economic losses and casualties. For the three key problems (i.e. modeling, computing and visualization) in regional building seismic damage simulation, a high-fidelity modeling method, a high-performance computing approach and a realistic visualization technique are proposed in this study, respectively. With respect to the modeling problem, a multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) shear model for multi-story buildings and a MDOF flexural-shear model for tall buildings are proposed. Also, the corresponding parameter determination methods are proposed. For the computing problem, a parallel computing method based on GPU (graphics processing unit) for regional building seismic damage simulation is proposed, leading to a speedup ratio of approximately 54 times. In regard to the visualization problem, a 3D-GIS data generation method using the widely accessible 3D urban polygonal model and a realistic visualization method are proposed for displaying the simulated urban earthquake disaster scenario. The above proposed methods have been used in a large-sized city and Beijing central business district (CBD). Accurate, efficient, and realistic simulations for regional building seismic damage have been achieved with these methods. The outcome of this study provides important technology for regional building seismic damage simulation, which can improve the ability of urban disaster prevention and mitigation.