MAE Center meets with Ameren IP representatives
The Mid-America Earthquake (MAE) Center hosted representatives from Ameren, a regional energy company, on July 23, 2009. The Ameren group was comprised of Jeff Lamb, Supervising Engineer; John Kao, Consulting Engineer; Brett Wilson, Associate Engineer; and Gary Conway, Career Engineer. The meeting focused on the needs of Ameren in terms of defining earthquake risk and how the MAE Center might assist Ameren in addressing those needs. Several MAE Center researchers presented current work on earthquake impact assessment modeling. Lisa Cleveland discussed recent progress on the FEMA earthquake impact assessment project in the New Madrid Seismic Zone. Jong Sung Lee of the National Center for Super Computing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois presented information on utility network modeling with MAE Center/NCSA earthquake impact assessment software MAEviz. Additionally, Ameren visitors received a tour of Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) facilities and the shaking table at the University of Illinois Civil and Environmental Engineering Department from Dr. Bill Spencer. Additional attendees included Dr. Amr Elnashai, Department Head for Civil and Environmental Engineering; Timothy Gress, MAE Center Managing Director; Gregory Pluta, NEES Operations Manager; and Liang Chang, MAE Center researcher.
