Keywords: integrated simulation, urban system, urban-scale hazard, object-based software environment, environment architecture, scalability.

A predictive integrated simulation system is now a pressing worldwide issue in the simulation of complex urban systems, ranging from a district to a metropolis, under the risk of urban-scale hazards: earthquakes, tsunamis, blasts, etc. The informal, dynamic, and evolving characteristics of the urban interdisciplinary simulation creates many challenges for the disconnected top-down simulation system. Key barriers include [1]: heterogeneity, interoperability, and accessibility to models or expertise; system complexity, size, and rapid or spontaneous changes; and the sharing of proprietary knowledge embodied in subsystem models. It is understood that individual participants perform their simulation services in separate environments, bartering service exchange relationships to obtain what they need to resolve their part of the problem.

The goal of this work is to facilitate the integrated simulation for the urban system that can rapidly predict its integrated performance under the risk of urban-scale hazards. This in turn makes it possible to make tradeoffs between different sustainable urban development-regeneration proposals. In addition, it empowers disaster preparedness and mitigation planning for the on-time scenario.

The authors envisage a distributed simulation service software environment running in parallel with the activities of simulation participants. A distributed object-based infrastructure has been developed to enable this vision. A prototype has been implementation, called DOSE (Distributed Object-based Software Environment). There are many examples of research effort to develop distributed systems for collaborative engineering [2,3,4]. This paper is also founded on a vision for distributed collaborative simulation [5,6,7,8].

In this paper, the underlying environment infrastructure has been introduced in addition to an example application for earthquake hazard that is applied to Bunkyo city, Japan, with a domain size of ( [m]). The DOSE environment has allowed third party application services of heterogeneous simulations, using different models, and different tools to be integrated. The object-based environment architecture has enabled relationships among environment objects to propagate changes such that an explicit overall system representation is not required, but rather urban system simulation emerges from the distributed service exchange network. In addition, environment scalability has been addressed to draw an inspiration for the feasibility of developing different tradeoffs of sustainable urban development and regeneration and disaster preparedness and mitigation by changing the values of simulation variables.

1

M. Cutkowsky, G.R. Olsen, J.M. Tenenbaum, T.R. Gruber, "Collaborative Engineering based on Knowledge Sharing Agreements", Proceedings of the 1994 Database Symposium, 1994.

2

K.F. Pahng, N. Senin, D.R. Wallace, "Modeling and Evaluation of Product Design Problems in a Distributed Design Environment", Proceedings of ASME DETC'97, Sacramento, California 1997.

3

K.F. Pahng, N. Senin, D.R. Wallace, "Distributed Modeling and Evaluation of Product Design Problems", Computer-Aided Design, 30, 411-423, 1998. doi:10.1016/S0010-4485(98)00005-0

4

D.R. Wallace, S. Abrahamson, N. Senin, P. Sferro, "Integrated Design in a Service Marketplace", Computer-Aided Design, 32, 97-107, 2000. doi:10.1016/S0010-4485(99)00093-7

5

M. Hassanien Serror, J. Inoue, T. Ichimura, M. Hori, "Kernel-Based Message Passing Interfaced Integrated Earthquake Simulation", Topping, B.H.V., (Editor), Proceedings of Tenth International Conference on Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering Computing, Civil-Comp Press, Stirling 2005.

6

T. Ichimura, M. Hori, "Macro-Micro Analysis for Prediction of Strong Motion Distribution in Large City", Journal of applied mechanics, JSCE, 1, 607-612, 1998.

7

F. Yang, T. Ichimura, M. Hori, "Earthquake Simulation in Virtual Metropolis Using Strong Motion Simulation and Geographic Information System", Journal of Applied Mechanics, JSCE, 3, 11-20, 2002.

8

T. Ichimura, M. Hori, K. Terada, T. Yamakawa, "On Integrated Earthquake Simulator Prototype: Combination of Numerical Simulation and Geographical Information System", Journal of Structural Mechanics and Earthquake Engineering, 9, 1-12, 2004.

purchase the full-text of this paper (price £20)

go to the previous paper
go to the next paper
return to the table of contents
return to the book description
purchase this book (price £105 +P&P)