Analyzing Uncertainty in Civil Engineering (eBook) von Wolfgang Fellin

Assessment of characteristic shear strength parameters of soil and its implication in geotechnical design.- Ambiguity of safety definition in geotechnical models.- The fuzziness and sensitivity of failure probabilities.- The mathematics of uncertainty: models, methods and interpretations.- Multi-parameter models: rules and computational methods for combining uncertainties.- Sensitivity analysis.- Difficulties related to numerical predictions of deformations.- FE ultimate load analyses of pile-supported pipelines - tackling uncertainty in a real design problem.- The Implications of Geotechnical Model Uncertainty for Construction Management.- Fuzzy, probabilistic and stochastic modelling of an elastically bedded beam.- Queueing models with fuzzy data in construction management.- Fuzzy models in geotechnical engineering and construction management.

This volumeaddressestheissueofuncertaintyincivilengineeringfromdesign toconstruction. Failures do occur in practice. Attributing them to a residual risk or a faulty execution of the projectdoesnotproperlycover the range of causes. A closer scrutiny of the design, the engineering model, the data, the soil-structure-interactionand the model assumptions is required. Usually, the uncertaintiesininitialandboundaryconditionsaswellasmaterialparameters are abundant. Current engineering practice often leaves these issues aside, despite the factthatnewscienti?c tools have been developed in the past decades that allow a rational description of uncertainties of all kinds, from model uncertainty to data uncertainty. It is the aim of this volume to have a critical look atcurrent engineering riskconcepts in order to raise awareness of uncertainty in numericalcom- tations, shortcomings of a strictly probabilistic safety concept, geotechnical models of failure mechanisms and their implications forconstruction mana- ment, execution,and the juristic questionas to who has to takeresponsibility. In addition, a number ofthe new procedures for modelling uncertaintyare- plained. Our central claim is that doubts and uncertainties must be openly - dressed in the design process. This contrasts certain tendencies in the en- neering community that, though incorporating uncertainties by one or the other way in the modelling process,claim to being able tocontrol them.