Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
APPENDIX A
Risk-Informed Approaches
to Safety Regulation
In risk-informed regulation, insights from risk assessment are considered
together with other engineering insights. This appendix summarizes basic
concepts of modern risk-informed safety regulation as they are currently
used in the design of civil infrastructure, focusing on their use in the
United States.
RISK-INFORMED ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF
CIVIL INFRASTRUCTURE FACILITIES
Risk-informed approaches to analysis, design, and condition assessment
have reached a state of maturity in many areas of civil infrastructure dur-
ing the past three decades, particularly in codes, standards, and regula-
tory guidelines that govern design and construction. These documents
are key tools for structural engineers in managing civil infrastructure risk
in the public interest, and the traditional structural design criteria they
contain address risks in performance as engineers have historically under-
stood them. For the most part, these criteria have been based on judgment.
In recent years, however, innovation in technology has occurred rapidly,
leaving less opportunity for learning through trial and error (as is the case
in the wind energy industry today). Standards for public health, safety,
and environmental protection now are often debated in the public arena,
and societal expectations of civil infrastructure have increased. Questions
concerning alternative or innovative projects and structural solutions are
better answered from a risk-informed perspective. Such a perspective
continues to include a significant component based on judgment: the
use of a 50- or 100-year mean recurrence interval (MRI) for the design
wind effect is an example. However, modern structural reliability tools
137
Search WWH ::
Custom Search