Advanced evaluation of civil engineering structures behaviour

Abstract

The development, maintenance and operation of infrastructures are central tasks on continued success of society. The decision processes involved in these tasks concern all aspects of managing. The main objective from a societal perspective is to improve the quality of life of individuals both for present and future generations. On the other hand, from the owner point of view, the main objective is to maximize the economic return of investments. If all aspects of decision problem would be known with certainty, the identification of optimal decisions would be straightforward by means of traditional cost-benefit analysis. However, our understanding of problems involved in decision analysis is often far less than perfect. In fact, the decision problem in engineering is subject to significant uncertainty. Infrastructures are constituted by civil engineering structures disposed in a series system. Accordingly, in any time instant, to decide about the optimal decision, the operator should evaluate each structural behavior. A structural analysis based in a probabilistic model is always preferable than in a deterministic one, as all possibilities of structural behavior are considered. Accordingly, within this research project, a methodology for advanced civil engineering structures evaluation, was developed.