Analyzing Uncertainty in Civil Engineering

✍ Scribed by Wolfgang Fellin (auth.), a.o. Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Wolfgang Fellin, em. Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Heimo Lessmann, a.o. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Michael Oberguggenberger, Dipl.-Ing. Robert Vieider (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 243
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume addresses the issue of uncertainty in civil engineering from design to construction. Failures do occur in practice. Attributing them to a residual system risk or a faulty execution of the project does not properly cover the range of causes. A closer scrutiny of the adopted design, the engineering model, the data, the soil-construction-interaction and the model assumptions is required. Usually, the uncertainties in initial and boundary conditions are abundant. Current engineering practice often leaves these issues aside, despite the fact that new scientific 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 at current engineering risk concepts in order to raise awareness of uncertainty in numerical computations, shortcomings of a strictly probabilistic safety concept, geotechnical models of failure mechanisms and their implications for construction management, execution, and the juristic question of responsibility. In addition, a number of the new procedures for modelling uncertainty are explained. The book is a result of a collaborate effort of mathematicians, engineers and construction managers who met regularly in a post graduate seminar at the University of Innsbruck during the past years.

✦ Table of Contents

Assessment of characteristic shear strength parameters of soil and its implication in geotechnical design....Pages 1-15
Ambiguity of safety definition in geotechnical models....Pages 17-31
The fuzziness and sensitivity of failure probabilities....Pages 33-49
The mathematics of uncertainty: models, methods and interpretations....Pages 51-72
Multi-parameter models: rules and computational methods for combining uncertainties....Pages 73-99
Sensitivity analysis....Pages 101-114
Difficulties related to numerical predictions of deformations....Pages 115-127
FE ultimate load analyses of pile-supported pipelines - tackling uncertainty in a real design problem....Pages 129-163
The Implications of Geotechnical Model Uncertainty for Construction Management....Pages 165-182
Fuzzy, probabilistic and stochastic modelling of an elastically bedded beam....Pages 183-196
Queueing models with fuzzy data in construction management....Pages 197-210
Fuzzy models in geotechnical engineering and construction management....Pages 211-239

✦ Subjects

Quality Control, Reliability, Safety and Risk; Applied Geosciences; Probability Theory and Stochastic Processes; Statistics for Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, Chemistry & Geosciences; Theoretical and Applied Mechanics; Struc