Abstract

DE LEON-ESCOBEDO, D.  and  FUENTES-MARILES, O.. Effect of imperfect knowledge of hazards on the reliability of concrete face rockfill dam and breakwater. Ing. invest. y tecnol. [online]. 2008, vol.9, n.3, pp.259-269. ISSN 2594-0732.

A formulation to treat aleatory and epistemic uncertainties, in a separate way, on infrastructures is proposed and applied to a dam and a breakwater in Mexico. The purpose of that is to de termine 2nd order bounds on the reliability estimation due to the in complete knowledge of some design parameters. These bounds provide a quantitative basis for risk management according to the risk-aversion of owners and operators of the infrastructure. Also, acceptable values of reliability, are assessed in terms of consequences costs, and an initial cost curve for a breakwater is presented, as they may contribute to enhance the decision making process. The in corporation of epistemic uncertainty makes the reliability index to become a random variable and its his to gram is obtained to estimate percentiles as a means to measure a new additional room for decisions as compared to the traditionally used mean value of the reliability. Conservative decisions are illustrated for design and assessment of structures like a dam and a breakwater. The procedure involves a double loop of Monte Carlo simulation and represents a basis for the optimal design and risk management of dams and breakwaters.

Keywords : Structural reliability; aleatory and epistemic uncertainty; failure probability; risk management; Monte Carlo simulation.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in English     · English ( pdf )