Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “information infrastructure”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 217 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Regional Oil and gas Aerial Methane Synthesis model (ROAMS) v2.0

The Regional Oil and gas Aerial Methane Synthesis model is a tool to convert the results of wide-area, source-resolved aerial methane remote sensing surveys of oil and natural gas infrastructure in a given region into methane emissions inventories (estimates of the magnitude and breakdown of methane emissions from the surveyed infrastructure). The tool leverages databases of source-resolved methane emissions detected in aerial surveys, aerial survey coverage information (which areas were measured and when), data summarizing surveyed oil and natural gas infrastructure and production (derived from third-party databases), as well as state-of-the-art mechanistic emissions simulation tools to characterize emissions too small for the aerial system to see. The regional methane emissions estimates produced by this tool are much more granular in both space and asset type than common satellite- or flux tower-based regional estimates. Unlike other tools for converting site-level measurements into regional emissions estimates, our unique geostatistical approach integrates aerially measured emissions with limited need for statistical extrapolation, which can be highly sensitive to modeler assumptions. As a result, ROAMS-based estimates of regional methane emissions from oil and gas activity are widely viewed as highly credible, as evidenced by the success of Dr. Sherwin's recent paper in Nature.

Sherwin, Evan [Lawrence Berkeley National Laborato↗
DOE OSTI2020

Infrastructure Modeling and Analysis [Web page]

Infrastructure is relied upon to support many basic functions of society. This summary provides information about Los Alamos National Laboratory's role to help counter natural and human-caused catastrophes on infrastructure.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Availability of state-level climate change projection resources for use in site-level risk assessment

In recent years, incorporating climate change considerations has become an important focus of organizations’ resilience planning and risk assessment efforts, including United States federal agencies. This has led to an increasing demand for higher-resolution and higher-quality climate projection information that is easy to understand for non-expert users. In particular, there is a demand for information about how climate change may affect high-impact, low-frequency (HILF) hazards that are central to risk assessments focused on infrastructure. While national-level resources like the National Climate Assessment provide information on climate impacts for different sectors and regions in the United States, downscaled information with location-specific context is often required for site-level resilience planning. As higher-resolution and higher-quality climate resources continue to be developed at the state level, it is imperative to understand ongoing and planned efforts, as well as key drivers for developing these state-level resources. Based primarily on stakeholder input from climate experts from 31 states, we identify key state-level climate resources, as well as drivers accelerating the development of these resources. We assess the availability of climate change resources, specifically those with information about HILF events that have been developed at the state level and can support users in conducting site-level resilience planning. We identify three key drivers or predictors for the development of climate change resources at the state level: (1) existence of state laws, mandates, Executive Orders, and other state policies, (2) existence of university partnerships; and (3) the makeup of the stakeholder groups (in terms of dominant discipline/expertise) participating in the effort. The diverse state strategies and resources surveyed in this study could support the incorporation of higher-resolution climate information into site-level planning.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Infrastructure and DFLAW Support at Hanford - 20443

Manhattan Project era infrastructure systems are degrading at an accelerated pace across the Department of Energy's (DOE) Environmental Management complex. Revitalizing, rejuvenating and right-sizing these systems to ensure reliability for ongoing cleanup missions is a major focus at the 580-square- mile Hanford Site in southeast Washington State. The push to complete construction, commissioning, startup, and operation of facilities and systems in the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) program at Hanford by 2023 requires considerable coordination among site contractors and a significant investment in infrastructure. The passage of time also poses a challenge. It has been about 75 years since facilities were first operated at the site, and approximately 40 years of plutonium production created a legacy of unidentified active and abandoned underground obstacles and waste sites that must be avoided when building and upgrading the infrastructure. Converting infrastructure systems originally built to support plutonium production from the 1940's to the 1980's and upgrading those systems to optimize technology is an ever-changing balance of funding profiles, available resources and execution strategies. The DOE Richland Operations Office (RL) has long recognized the need for increased investment in Hanford Site infrastructure to support the future processing of approximately 56 million gallons of waste currently stored in large underground tanks. When DFLAW is fully operational, safe and reliable infrastructure systems will be needed to ensure continuity of operations around the clock, 365 days a year. These include roadways, water, power, sewer, information technology systems and facilities. To ensure the readiness of Hanford's infrastructure to support treating tank waste in the next three years, 15 projects were identified with a combined value of $133.8 million. Through calendar year 2019, 7 infrastructure projects have been substantially completed and the remaining 8 projects, with a remaining value of $103.8 million, are scheduled to be completed by December 2023. RL and its site services/infrastructure contractor, Mission Support Alliance (MSA), regularly evaluate the needs of the DFLAW program and other Hanford Site missions to ensure the highest priority systems are addressed. In addition to a fast-approaching deadline for round-the-clock treatment operations, RL and MSA face another significant infrastructure challenge. As cleanup is being completed in a 220-square-mile area called the River Corridor, most of the cleanup operations going forward will occur in a 20-square-mile area in the center of the Hanford Site, known as the Central Plateau. Infrastructure systems are becoming more congested in an already overcrowded area. This paper/presentation will outline some of the challenges Hanford faces while executing infrastructure reliability projects. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2025

Risk-controlled Expansion Planning with Distributed Resources (REPAIR) v1.0

The Risk-controlled Expansion Planning with Distributed Resources (REPAIR) is an innovative tool to support decisions around utility grid planning to prevent and mitigate the impact of outages caused by routine equipment failures (reliability) or by extreme events (resilience), such as storms, earthquakes or wildfires that long term interruption of service. REPAIR is a risk-based optimization and decision-making model allowing informed and transparent "cost vs risk" decisions regarding infrastructural planning of electric utilities. The model considers long-term resilience and reliability planning strategies that rely on traditional infrastructure upgrade (e.g. circuit hardening, reinforcement, new substations, etc.) or new investment alternatives, such as DERs.

Heleno, Miguel [Lawrence Berkeley National Laborat↗
DOE OSTI2026

Fleet Utilization

A key goal of NextGen Profiles' fleet utilization study was to conduct a comprehensive, strategic, and standardized assessment of the operational behavior and utilization patterns across EV and EVSE production-ready fleets. These data-driven insights were intended to inform current fleet management strategies and support future infrastructure planning, ensuring the effective adoption and adaptation of the growing EV fleet market. The study applied a series of metrics defined in NextGen Profiles to evaluate diverse fleet operations across various use cases, emphasizing trends in charging, routing, and other critical behaviors. The fleet utilization dataset includes these three sets of metrics from 17 EV fleets, each consisting of a wide range of vehicle types and operational categories, as well as two EVSE fleets. Data were collected from a variety of sources and reformatted into a unified structure before metric computation, ensuring consistency and comparability across all fleets. To protect confidentiality, all fleet metadata are anonymized, and the publicly released metric datasets are aggregated to an hourly cadence.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

2020 LANL Contributions to the BATS Test in WIPP

The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) repository research and development program seeks to provide a sound technical basis for multiple viable disposal options, increase confidence in the robustness of generic disposal concepts, and develop science and engineering tools needed to support disposal concept implementation. Sandia, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Berkeley National labs are conducting research into salt, which includes the Brine Availability Test in Salt (BATS) field test at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a DOE Office of Environmental Management facility. BATS is leveraging the existing infrastructure associated with the WIPP to advance science informing generic disposal concepts. BATS is an ongoing heated borehole experiment being conducted in the WIPP underground. The goal of this experiment is to reduce the uncertainty associated with spent nuclear fuel disposition in geologic salt formations. The BATS experiments is designed to accomplish this by increasing our understanding of brine migration in salt, assessing damaged zones from mining and drilling, simulating a post-closure environment, confirming salt properties, and providing data for model validation. Phased testing for generic salt repository R&D was proposed in 2015. Subsequently, borehole thermal testing was developed as a first step in this process. This document summarizes the work conducted on the BATS experiment during fiscal year 2020 with an emphasis on the contributions by Los Alamos National Lab.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2021

The Transportation Energy and Mobility Pathway Options (TEMPO) Model: Overview and Validation of V1.0 [Slides]

This presentation documents the approaches and methods used in the Transportation Energy & Mobility Pathway Options™ (TEMPO) model to evaluate passenger and freight demand for transportation and mobility services, project vehicle ownership and technology adoption decisions, and determine transport mode choices to derive scenarios of future energy use and emissions. TEMPO is an all-inclusive transportation demand model that covers the entire United States, with an implicit spatial resolution and an hourly temporal resolution that allows for generating time-resolved energy use profiles to assess multisectoral integration aspects. Key features of the TEMPO model include the ability to perform endogenous out-of-sample forecasting to extrapolate recent emerging trends and analyze impacts of disruptive technological breakthroughs and behavioral changes. TEMPO employs an innovative representation of passenger mobility demand stemming from household-level decisions that determine vehicle adoption, ownership, and use based on sociodemographics (e.g., income, household composition), technology attributes (e.g., travel cost, time), geography (e.g., urban, suburban, rural) and population-specific multiday mobility and travel requirements. This representation enables a more forward-looking perspective on the use of new mobility options and the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles, as well as a more accurate representation of their energy usage profiles than previous modeling approaches. A comparison with the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook showcases the ability of TEMPO to accurately replicate widely accepted projections by representing the key elements of the entire transportation sector at the appropriate level of resolution. TEMPO is intended to generate future scenarios of technology adoption, energy use, and emissions in the transportation sector to compare alternatives, inform decision makers, and assess integration with energy infrastructure and supply systems at an appropriate spatiotemporal resolution.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

NSA Site Science: Use of ARM Observations from Northern Alaska to Evaluate and Improve Prediction Capabilities

The Arctic is warming at a rate nearly double that of the rest of the planet, leading to profound changes in atmospheric, oceanic, and ice processes. The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility has played a significant role in Arctic research, operating observatories in Alaska's North Slope for over 25 years. These observatories provide a rich, and wide-reaching dataset that offers insight into atmospheric processes in northern Alaska. This report details the results of a nine-year research project (2015–2024) supported by the DOE Atmospheric Systems Research (ASR) program, that leverages data from ARM’s deployment of observing facilities at Utqiaġvik (known as the North Slope of Alaska, or NSA, site) and Oliktok Point, Alaska. The project was conducted in two phases: - Phase 1 (2015–2019): Focused on understanding key atmospheric processes at Oliktok Point, including cloud formation, high-latitude precipitation, aerosol-cloud interactions, and cloud properties. - Phase 2 (2019–2024): Extended the research to the broader North Slope region, using data from both Oliktok Point and Utqiaġvik. Topics explored included surface energy budgets, atmospheric stability, ice nucleation processes, and microphysics in Arctic clouds. The project resulted in numerous research products, including 50 peer-reviewed publications and dissertations, 169 presentations, and 10 data products. These products cover a variety of topics, including: - Cloud Macro- and Microphysical Properties: Arctic clouds play a crucial role in energy transfer, and accurate representation in models is critical. The study explored cloud transitions, ice crystal shapes, and dual-wavelength radar data to understand ice crystal habits and size distributions. - Aerosol Properties and Processes: The team examined aerosol sources in the Arctic, including industrial emissions and natural sources. Observations showed significant spatial gradients in aerosol concentrations due to human activities and wildfire smoke. The influence of aerosols on cloud formation and the surface energy budget was also assessed. - Aerosol-Cloud Interactions: Research revealed that aerosols might suppress cloud ice production, affecting cloud radiative forcing and precipitation. The impact of local industrial emissions on cloud properties was also investigated. - Contextualizing the North Slope of Alaska in the context of the broader Arctic: To understand broader trends, the project evaluated large-scale circulation patterns and the influence of weather systems on the Arctic. Studies indicated that large-scale processes play a significant role in temperature patterns and the timing of snowmelt. - Advancing ARM Observational and Modeling Capabilities: The project developed new radar data products and advanced measurement techniques, including clutter mitigation and drizzle detection. Uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) and tethered balloon systems (TBS) were deployed to gather detailed atmospheric data. Additionally, the project supported 10 early career scientists, providing training and mentorship to undergraduate interns, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and early career researchers. These efforts contributed to the advancement of ARM research capabilities and fostered a new generation of scientists skilled in Arctic atmospheric research. Ultimately, this ASR-supported project has provided valuable insights into Arctic atmospheric processes and their broader climate implications. Recommendations for future work include continuing support for long-term observing at Arctic locations to foster additional research, further exploration of aerosol-cloud interactions and the potential impacts of enhanced industrialization of the Arctic, and expanded use of uncrewed systems to gather data in this remote and harsh environment. Additionally, the data products developed by this work, and the data products developed through the ARM infrastructure, leave a treasure-trove of additional information that should be explored for many years to come to gain additional insight into physical processes in the Arctic atmosphere that drive the rapid changes occurring in at high latitudes and their global impact.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Attack-resilient algorithms and testbed federation for wide-area protection and control in smart grid

Today’s energy infrastructure is undergoing a massive transformation across all generation, transmission, and distribution systems to provide reliability, efficiency, and sustainability to the power system network. During the past 10 years, there has been a remarkable enhancement in developing close-loop wide-area protection and control (WAPAC) applications, such as automatic generation control (AGC), wide-area protection scheme (WAPS), synchrophasor-based wide-area voltage control system (WAVCS), etc., in the energy management system (EMS) to provide an adequate situational awareness to control center operators during physical disturbances and natural events. The rapid digitalization, unencrypted communication, and numerous data-sharing devices have increased digital access points that have exposed the grid network to countless cyberattacks pertinent to the WAPAC cybersecurity. Given the amount of complex grid network coupled with legacy infrastructures, it is untrustworthy to completely rely on information technology (IT)-based conventional security measures to defend against evolving cyberattacks. Hence, there is a compelling need to go beyond the traditional paradigm of ‘security by obscurity’ and ‘bolt-on’ security measures, and develop a suite of innovative security solutions at multiple layers to transform the current “fault-resilient” grid into “fault and attack-resilient” grid of the future. This dissertation specifically focuses on developing application-specific attack-resilient solutions for critical WAPAC applications in the smart grid. The first part of the study, Attack-Resilient Wide-Area Protection Scheme, presents a cyber-physical attack-resilient system (CPARS) for WAPS, where two anomaly detection methods are proposed to detect multi-level cyberattacks followed by the rules-based intrusion mitigation system (RIMS) to initiate effective mitigation strategies, tailored to these attacks, to restore the normal grid operation after disturbances. The first anomaly detection component, Machine learning-based Anomaly Detection for Centralized WAPS, discusses a novel architecture and methodology for developing a machine-learning-based anomaly detection system (ADS) for the centralized wide-area protection system (CWAPS) by applying the variational mode decomposition (VMD) technique and decision tree (DT) algorithms using cyber logs and synchrophasor measurements. The second component, Multi-Agent-based Anomaly Detection for Decentralized WAPS, presents a two-level hierarchical multi-agent-based decentralized WAPS against the system-aware stealthy cyber-attacks. Finally, for the RIMS, the state transition diagram-based mitigation measures are defined based on the grid operation states and experimental testing and evaluation are presented in a cyber-physical testbed environment. The second part of the study, Attack-Resilient Wide-Area Voltage Control System, addresses the existing vulnerabilities in the wide-area voltage control system (WAVCS), presents the methodology for performing an impact analysis during data integrity attacks, and proposes a data-driven attackresilient system (DARS) by incorporating machine learning-based ADS and rules-based anomaly mitigation system (RAMS) to detect these attacks and provide necessary mitigation actions to maintain the transient voltage stability after disturbances. Finally, the third part, Networked Federation Testbed (NEFTSec) for Smart Grid Cybersecurity, focuses on developing an interconnected federated testbed through a common network like the internet, describes its conceptual architectures, and also presents its design components for experimental testing, validation, and evaluation. Further, it presents the co-simulation interface algorithm (CIA) to facilitate the geographically-dispersed real-time distributed simulation (GD-RTDS) during the cyber-physical federation. In general, this dissertation presents innovative attack-resilient solutions for WAPAC applications that are experimentally tested and evaluated using the PowerCyber testbed and NEFTSec platform to accelerate the transition of state-of-the-art research works to the real-field deployments.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Integrated Operations for Nuclear: Work Reduction Opportunity Demonstration

Integrated Operations for Nuclear: Work Reduction Opportunity Demonstration The DI BCA document also identifies specific, digitally enabled WRO categories for further study. These were selected as most relevant by Reference Plant personnel from a larger list of WRO areas identified across the nuclear industry as captured INL/RPT-21-64134, “Process for Significant Nuclear Work Function Innovation Based on Integrated Operations Concepts.” This ION WRO demonstration report was developed to provide illustrative, specific, and actionable direction for intertwined PTPG changes associated with digital modernization efforts. The coordinated changes in these areas are intended to maximize safe plant operational and economic performance. This includes enabling WROs associated with detailed configuration, implementation, and use of digital systems and how they are supported over their lifecycle. Illustrating this direction through a minimum set of advanced technology examples establishes a model PTPG framework that can be leveraged across the spectrum of nuclear plant digital modernization efforts going forward. This document addresses many related concepts. To promote an integrated understanding of the topics that make up this work, this document contains an extensive set of internal hyperlinks. This set includes hyperlinks to page numbers in the table of contents, section numbers, items in lists, figures, tables, and references to other documents within the report. When hovering the cursor above hyperlinked text in Adobe, the cursor will change from “ ” to “ .” When the “ ” appears, a left mouse click will take the reader to the referenced location in the document. To return to the original location in the document, the reader need only press and hold the “alt” button on the keyboard and then simultaneously press the “<” directional key on the keyboard.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

ML-CGRA: An Integrated Compilation Framework to Enable Efficient Machine Learning Acceleration on CGRAs

Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Arrays (CGRAs) can achieve higher energy-efficiency than general-purpose processors and accelerators or fine-grained reconfigurable devices, while maintaining adaptability to different computational patterns. CGRAs have shown some success as a platform to accelerate machine learning (ML) thanks to their flexibility, which allows them to support new models not considered by fixed accelerators. However, current solutions for CGRAs employ low level instruction-based compiler approaches and lack specialized compilation infrastructures from high-level ML frameworks that could leverage semantic information from the models, limiting the ability to efficiently map them on the recon- figurable substrate. This paper proposes ML-CGRA, an integrated compilation framework based on the MLIR infrastructure that en- ables efficient ML acceleration on CGRAs. ML-CGRA provides an end-to-end solution for mapping ML models on CGRAs that out- performs conventional approaches by 3.15× and 6.02 × on 4×4 and 8×8 CGRAs, respectively.

machine learning↗
DOE OSTI2026

EVI-X Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Toolbox

The Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Toolbox offers resources for estimating charging infrastructure needs and associated electrical demands based on user-defined electric vehicle adoption scenarios. For more information and additional resources, see the full EVI-X modeling suite of electric vehicle charging infrastructure analysis tools.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Gulf of Mexico Offshore Wind Transmission - Literature Review and Gaps Analysis: Environmental Considerations, Community Readiness, and Infrastructure

The ability to effectively and efficiently connect offshore wind energy resources to end users in the Gulf of Mexico, requires coordinated transmission planning to ensure that electric transmission facilities can adequately support future offshore development. The Gulf of Mexico has substantial wind resources in both shallow shelf waters and deeper waters off the shelf where fixed bottom and floating wind technologies would be most appropriate. Most interest in offshore wind development to date has been in the central and western portions of the Gulf of Mexico (Louisiana and Texas) in federal and state waters. As a companion study to other federal activities in the offshore wind transmission space, including the Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Literature Review and Gaps Analysis, the Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Study, the West Coast Offshore Wind Transmission Literature Review and Gaps Analysis, the West Coast Offshore Wind Transmission Study, and the Advancing Offshore Wind Energy in the United States: U. S. Department of Energy Strategic Contributions Toward 30 Gigawatts and Beyond Report, this literature review and gaps analysis for offshore wind transmission in the Gulf of Mexico builds off previous literature reviews and supports the role of federal leadership to facilitate offshore wind energy. The overarching goal of this document is to identify gaps and lay the groundwork to inform coordinated transmission planning, ocean co-use, existing energy infrastructure, and siting associated with offshore wind energy development in the Gulf of Mexico. There are unique regional considerations for offshore wind transmission, which are summarized herein based on a review and assessment of publicly available information.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2022

Roadmap to Automated Mobility Systems: Informing the Planning of a Sustainable, Resilient Transportation Ecosystem for Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed this report to provide Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) assistance toward a vision that considers the maturation and proliferation of mobility automation, electrification, and infrastructure integrated with Internet of Things (IoT) technologies as they present themselves on the path to 2035. In planning ongoing infrastructure investments, DFW has goals to accommodate and leverage these enabling technologies toward greater sustainability and enhanced traveler and employee experiences, ensuring that infrastructure investments are fully utilized into the future. The objective of this document is to assist DFW to anticipate and envision future airport access by travelers, employees, and goods by examining existing needs and exploring opportunities enabled by technology that informs longer-term infrastructure planning. The vast infrastructure of DFW, which includes buildings, roadways, and other physical structures, as well as growing digital and energy network infrastructures, requires long-term planning and strategy to fully leverage technology advancement and avoid abandoning assets due to functional obsolescence.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Data Processing Pipeline To Extract A Knowledge Graph From Sec Documents For Socio-technical Analysis Of Critical Infrastructure Influence

The code is written in Python and consists of the following pipeline that is implemented in Apache Airflow. This pipeline intends to understand the companies that are directly or indirectly involved with a type of critical infrastructure system at some point in that system's lifecycle. The pipeline takes a configuration file that specifies a list of initial companies to consider, a geographic region of interest (disk) expressed as a latitude/longitude point and distance, and a set of SEC form types from which to extract entities and relations. There are three main components to this pipeline as currently implemented: Social Network Extraction, Critical Infrastructure Network Extraction, and Inference and Fusion. First, Social Network Extraction, implemented as the `organizations_sec` component of the workflow graph queries the SEC EDGAR webservice using the list of initial companies from the configuration file. Given this, it extracts metadata that documents the number of each type of form for the given set of companies and their location. This forms metadata represents a catalog of data sources for the extracted social network knowledge graph. The pipeline then downloads these forms from the website and saves them in a build directory for further processing. These documents are then parsed for entities and relations. Second, the Critical Network Extraction component extracts entities and relations for a critical infrastructure sector. Currently, we focus on Electric Vehicle charging stations and this information is available via the Department of Energy (DOE) database on fueling stations maintained by NREL. Third, the Inference and Fusion component relates the social network graph to the critical infrastructure graph in order to understand the impact of a company within a geographic region. Relations include ownership of the EV Charging Station asset as well as maintenance/ownership of the EV payment networks. The fused network can be represented in many ways and currently we emit a knowledge graph.

Weaver, GabrielA.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Validation of (not-historical) large-event near-fault ground-motion simulations for use in civil engineering applications

Ground-motion simulations generated from physics-based wave propagation models are gaining increasing interest in the engineering community for their potential to inform the performance-based design and assessment of infrastructure residing in active seismic areas. A key prerequisite before the ground-motion simulations can be used with confidence for application in engineering domains is their comprehensive and rigorous investigation and validation. This article provides a four-step methodology and acceptance criteria to assess the reliability of simulated ground motions of not historical events, which includes (1) the selection of a population of real records consistent with the simulated scenarios, (2) the comparison of the distribution of Intensity Measures (IMs) from the simulated records, real records, and Ground-Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs), (3) the comparison of the distribution of simple proxies for building response, and (4) the comparison of the distribution of Engineering Demand Parameters (EDPs) for a realistic model of a structure. Specific focus is laid on near-field ground motions (<10km) from large earthquakes (M w 7), for which the database of real records for potential use in engineering applications is severely limited. The methodology is demonstrated through comparison of (2490) near-field synthetic records with 5 Hz resolution generated from the Pitarka et al (2019) kinematic rupture model with a population of (38) pulse-like near-field real records from multiple events and, when applicable, with NGA-W2 GMPEs. Lastly, the proposed procedure provides an effective method for informing and advancing the science needed to generate realistic ground-motion simulations, and for building confidence in their use in engineering domains.

42 ENGINEERING↗