Managing, handling and modelling uncertainty in structural engineering codes

Overzicht

The seminar “Managing, handling and modelling uncertainty in structural engineering codes” will take place on 30 September, 2014 in Ghent and will be dedicated to structural engineering codes in which uncertainty modeling plays a crucial role.

The workshop intends to bring together scientific experts in the field of uncertainty modeling, structural reliability and/or structural engineering and practitioners in the field of structural engineering that are confronted with specific lacunae or problems in current codified design guidelines. Further, it is also the intention to communicate the already available principles and concepts that are commonly applied in structural engineering to other disciplines that are confronted with uncertainty handling and are in need of developing codified procedures or guidelines.

More information & Registration

For more information and registration, please visit the event website: www.ie-net.be/structuralengineering 

Support

The event is supported by the Belgian Nuclear Research Center (SCK•CEN) and AREVA.

Background

The current Eurocodes apply a so-called semi-probabilistic approach with calibrated partial factors which are based on structural reliability methods (most often using First-Order Reliability Methods of level III, so called FORM analyses, or a more simplified level II approach) and a set of probabilistic models for basic variables. The last few years, an increasing interest in performance-based design, service-life design and life-cycle analysis is visible, as well as a necessity to expand the original application area of the current set of Eurocodes to e.g. existing structures and temporary structures.

An increasing number of research contributions provide useful information to promote the development of standards and guidelines for this expanded application area, but such developments should be consistent with the current philosophy of the Eurocodes so that they can find their way into practical applications. The distillation of consistent, accurate and practically applicable structural engineering codes is far from trivial and needs careful consideration.