Uncertainty is certain to be found in structural engineering, making it crucial to structure design. This book covers three competing philosophies behind structural safety and reliability: probabilistic analysis, fuzzy set-based treatments, and the convex approach. Explaining the theory behind probabilistic analysis, fuzzy set-based treatments, and the convex approach in detail, alongside their implementation, use, and benefits, the book compares and contrasts these methods, enabling the reader to solve problems associated with uncertainty. These uncertainty issues can be seen in civil engineering structures, risk of earthquakes, impact of rough seas on ships, and turbulence affecting aerospace vehicles. Building on the authors’ many years of experience in the field, Philosophies of Structural Safety and Reliability is an essential guide to structural uncertainty. Topics covered in the book include properties of materials and their structural deterioration, safety factor and reliability, risk evaluation and loads, and their combinations. This book will be of interest to students and professionals in the fields of aerospace, civil, mechanical, marine, and ocean engineering.

Uncertainty is certain to be found in structural engineering, making it crucial to structure design. This book covers three competing philosophies behind structural safety and reliability: probabilistic analysis, fuzzy-sets based treatments, and the convex approach. Explaining the theory behind probabilistic analysis, fuzzy-sets based treatments, and the convex approach in detail, alongside their implementation, use and benefits, the book compares and contrasts these methods, enabling the reader to solve problems associated with uncertainty. These uncertainty issues can be seen in the examples of civil engineering structures and the risk of earthquakes, the impact of rough seas on a ship, and the problem of turbulence for aerospace vehicles. Building on the authors' years of experience in the field, the book is an essential guide to structural uncertainty. Topics covered in the book include properties of materials and their structural deterioration, safety factor and reliability, risk evaluation and loads and their combinations. The book will be of interest to students and professionals in the field of aerospace, civil, mechanical, marine and ocean engineering.

International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability documents the proceedings of a conference of the same name, which focuses mainly on the integration of all aspects of structural design (load-analysis, stability and strength analysis, and stress and deformation analysis) by the safety and reliability analysis of the structure of necessity. This text is divided into five sessions, reflecting the manner each topic is presented in the symposium. The general aspects of structural reliability are first presented, and then the methods of safety and reliability analysis and the Bayesian statistical decision theory and reliability-based design are examined. This book then considers the problems regarding the extreme values of stochastic processes, as well as other statistical theories of extremes. A part in this text is devoted to the random excitation of structures. The last two parts examine the development of modern aircraft design and structure as well as special reliability problems to evaluate and apply the theories examined. This book will be valuable to engineering students and engineers interested in structural safety and reliability.

Advances in Space Science and Technology, Volume 8 presents the possibility that what is recognized as lunar cratering was caused by endogenous, volcanic activity rather than by the more widely accepted meteoritic impact mechanism. This book provides an introduction to the technology of rocketry. Organized into four chapters, this volume begins with an overview of lunar volcanism and the interpretation of the widespread phenomenon of cratering. This text then provides a comprehensive examination of one of the major components of the solid propellant rocket. Other chapters consider the many problems associated with design, construction, and testing of motor cases of the solid propellant rocket. This book presents as well a thorough examination of interplanetary mission planning covering such vital elements as the process of mission decision making based on model theory. The final chapter deals with the exploration of the planet Mars. This book is a valuable resource for geoscientists, astronomers, and geologists.

Safety, Reliability, Risk and Life-Cycle Performance of Structures and Infrastructures contains the plenary lectures and papers presented at the 11th International Conference on STRUCTURAL SAFETY AND RELIABILITY (ICOSSAR2013, New York, NY, USA, 16-20 June 2013). This set of a book of abstracts and searchable, full paper USBdevice is must-have literature for researchers and practitioners involved with safety, reliability, risk and life-cycle performance of structures and infrastructures.

This book aims to promote the study, research and applications in the design, assessment, prediction, and optimal management of life-cycle performance, safety, reliability, and risk of civil structures and infrastructure systems. The contribution in each chapter presents state-of-the-art as well as emerging applications related to key aspects of the life-cycle civil engineering field. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Structure and Infrastructure Engineering.

For a large part of the existing buildings and infrastructure the design life has been reached or will be reached in the near future. These structures might need to be reassessed in order to investigate whether the safety requirements are met. Current practice on the assessment of existing concrete structures however needs a thorough evaluation from a risk and reliability point of view, as they are mostly verified using simplified procedures based on the partial factor method commonly applied in design of new structures. Such assessments are often conservative and may lead to expensive upgrades. Although the last decades reliability-based assessment of existing concrete structures has gained wide attention in the research field, a consistent reliability-based assessment framework and a practically applicable codified approach which is compatible with the Eurocodes and accessible for common structural engineering problems in everyday practice is currently missing. Such an approach however allows for a more uniform, more objective and probably more widely applied assessment approach for existing concrete structures. Hence, in this bulletin two different partial factor formats are elaborated, i.e. the Design Value Method (DVM) and the Adjusted Partial Factor Method (APFM), enabling the incorporation of specific reliability related aspects for existing structures. The DVM proposes a fundamental basis for evaluating partial factors whereas the APFM provides adjustment factors to be applied on the partial factors for new structures in EN 1990. In this bulletin both methods are elaborated and evaluated and a basis is provided for decision making regarding the target safety level of existing structures.

Have you ever wondered where the safety factors come from? Why is it that deterministic analysis has reached a very sophisticated level, but in the end empirical factors are still needed? Is there a way to select them, rather than assigning them arbitrarily as is often done? This book clearly shows that safety factors are closely related with the reliability of structures, giving yet another demonstration of Albert Einstein's maxim that "It is incomprehensible that Nature is comprehensible". The book shows that the safety factors are much more comprehensible if they are seen in a probabilistic context. Several definitions of the safety factors are given, analytical results on insightful numbers are presented, nonprobabilistic safety factors are shown, as well as their estimates derived by the inequalities of Bienayme, Markov, Chebushev and Camp-Meidell. A special chapter is devoted to important contributions by Japanese experts. This volume will help to critically re-think the issue of safety factors, which can create a false feeling of security. The deterministic paradigm can be enhanced by incorporating probabilistic concepts wisely where they are needed without treating all variables as probabilistic ones. The book shows that there is a need of their integration rather than separation. This book is intended for engineers, graduate students, lecturers and researchers.

Millions of breasting and mooring dolphins have been installed in inland waterways adjacent to jetties and waiting facilities for ship-to-ship transhipment or as crash barriers in commercial port areas throughout the world. A dolphin is a marine structure that is frequently installed in ports, waterways and other places related to marine traffic. Dolphins are typically located adjacent to waterfront structures such as quay walls, jetties, locks and bridge piers. The purpose of a dolphin is threefold: Allow ships to berth and moor safely and efficiently Protect waterfront structures by acting as a crash barrier and sacrificial structure Direct and guide marine traffic by acting as a lead-in dolphin and navigation aid The main objective of this handbook is to provide engineers, asset managers, suppliers, tender teams, contractors and principals with such guidance on the design and construction of flexible dolphins by collecting and describing knowledge of and experience with these flexible marine structures.This handbook is intended to prevent extensive discussions during the design and construction stages of projects involving flexible dolphins. It is part of a series of Dutch port infrastructure design recommendations that include the Quay Walls handbook and Jetties and Wharfs handbook.