IABSE CONFERENCE

GENEVA, 2015

Structural Engineering: Providing Solutions

to Global Challenges

REPORT

International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering IABSE

iv Structural Engineering: Providing Solutions to Global Challenges

Table of Contents

Theme 1: Climate Change and the Energy Challenge

CE-01 T: Sustainability and the Structural Engineer
Andrew Martin
The DIOGEN and CIOGEN works, a specific approach in environmental assessment of civil engineering structures
Tardivel, Yannick; Feraille, Adélaïde; Montens, Serge; Tessier, Christian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Sustainable Bridge Design in Germany
Retzepis, Ioannis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Major sustainability drives on a large project, the Queen Elizabeth Park.
Kirk, Martin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Bridges, Sustainability and the Structural Engineer
Martin, Andrew. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
A Sustainable Structural Design method to analyse structural and environmental performances of a building
Tsimplokoukou, Kassiani; Lamperti Tornaghi, Marco; Negro, Paolo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Sustainable Bridge Design Using Precast Concrete Joints with Monolithic Behaviour
Saad, Fathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

CE-02 T: Ultra-long service-life of structures

Christian Cremona
Designing Bridges for a Long Service Life
Gabler, Markus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Structure Birth Certificate for Service Life Design and Through-Life Management
Bartholomew, Michael . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Durability Features of the Vimy Memorial Bridge
Ajrab, Jack; Anderson, William; Montminy, Sylvain; O’Connell, Ryan; Delph, Marcel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Corrosion Protection Plan Requirements in APD: Defining Requirements
Elza, Peter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Increased Service Life of Fatigue Effected Structures through High Frequency Mechanical Impact Treatments
Breunig, Stephanie; Kuhlmann, Ulrike. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Verification of Infinite Life Fatigue Performance of a Cost-Effective Steel Orthotropic Deck Design by Full Scale
Laboratory Testing
Mukherjee, Soham; Roy, Sougata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

CE-03 S: Sustainable construction materials

Daia Zwicky
Material quantities and embodied carbon of footbridges
De Wolf, Catherine; Bianquis, Rosalie; Verbeeck, Kenny; Ochsendorf, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Wood-lightweight concrete - Development of energy and resource resource-efficient construction materials
Fadai, Alireza; Winter, Wolfgang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Hybrid Timber Construction – combining material properties for energy efficiency and sustainability
Hein, Carsten; Lawrence, Andrew; Campbell, Adrian; Snelson, Timothy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Research of Performance and Durability of long span prestress concrete box girder bridge of gravel concrete
Weng, Fang-Wen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
 IABSE Conference, Geneva, 2015 v

Application of Prestressed Concrete Composite Box-girder Bridges with Corrugated Steel Webs in Bridge
Engineering in China
Li, Ming; Song, Jianyong; Li, Wanheng; Zhang, Jinquan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Build with weathering steel : environmental and economical impacts–T7 tramway bridge in Paris area
Michel, Loïc; Gogny, Eric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

CE-04 T: Sustainable buildings

Daia Zwicky
Developing a Basis for Design – Embodied Carbon in Structures
Sarkisian, Mark; Shook, David; Desai, Devki; Wang, Nicole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Carbon Emission Assessment for Super Tall Buildings with Viscoelastic Coupling Dampers
Zhao, Xin; Qin, Lang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Structural Optimization for a Sustainable Architecture
Beghini, Alessandro; Mathias, Neville; Sarkisian, Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Innovative construction system for sustainable buildings
Loss, Cristiano; Piazza, Maurizio; Zandonini, Riccardo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Integrated Embodied Carbon Optimal Design of Super Tall Building Structures with Viscous Dampers
Zhao, Xin; Shi, Tao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Indicators for Serviceability for Low-Carbon Building Slab Types
Molina-Moreno, Francisca; Yepes-Piqueras, Víctor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

CE-05 S: Multifunctional energy-efficient building envelopes

Georgios Tsionis
Energy-Efficient Building Envelopes: use of Phase Change Materials in Cement-Based Composites
Lamperti Tornaghi, Marco; Caverzan, Alessio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Numerical modelling of UHPC and TRC sandwich elements for building envelopes
Miccoli, Lorenzo; Johansson, Gabriel; Zandi, Kamyab; Williams Portal, Natalie; Fontana, Patrick;
Müller, Urs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

CE-06 S: Extreme environmental actions on structures

Yaojun Ge and Yongxin Yang
Wind Resistant Performance and Countermeasures for Cable-stayed Bridges with Open-section Girder
Yang, Yongxin; Zhou, Rui; Ge, Yaojun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Reevaluation of the Design Loads for an Existing Avalanche Protection Gallery - A Probabilistic Approach
Fischer, Katharina; Schubert, Matthias; Schaer, Mark; Margreth, Stefan; Schellenberg, Kristian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Effect of Statistical Uncertainties in Ground Snow Load on Structural Reliability
Rózsás, Árpád; Sýkora, Miroslav . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Climate change effects on design thermal actions for concrete structures
Larsson, Oskar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Truss Structure Capacity Monitoring Considering Accelerated Steel Corrosion under Climate Change
Feng, Yansheng; Sun, Zhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

CE-07 S: Environmental hazards on structures

Inamullah Khan, Qiao Li and Deshan Shan
Effects of Tsunami Measures for Bridges
Hasegawa, Akira . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
 IABSE Conference – Structural Engineering: Providing Solutions to Global Challenges
September 23-25 2015, Geneva, Switzerland

Effect of Statistical Uncertainties in Ground Snow Load on Structural

Reliability
Árpád Rózsás
Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary

Miroslav Sýkora
Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

Contact: rozsas.arpad@epito.bme.hu

Abstract
This paper studies the effect of commonly neglected statistical uncertainties on structural
reliability. The failure probability of a generic structural member, subjected to snow load is
analysed using frequentist and Bayesian techniques to quantify parameter estimation and model
selection uncertainties in ground snow load. Various variable to dead load ratios are considered to
cover a wide range of real structures. The analysis reveals that statistical uncertainties may have a
substantial effect on reliability. By accounting for parameter estimation uncertainty, the failure
probability can increase by more than an order of magnitude. Bayesian posterior predictive
distribution is recommended to incorporate parameter estimation uncertainty in reliability
studies.
Keywords: structural reliability; statistical uncertainty; Bayesian statistics; posterior predictive;
model averaging; maximum likelihood; snow load.

and provide practical recommendations regarding

1 Introduction
One source of uncertainty in structural reliability is
statistical uncertainty which stems from the
scarcity of available information to identify
probabilistic models. This uncertainty is often
neglected or inadequately addressed in
probabilistic engineering analysis and design even
if its effect on reliability can be significant [1-3].
Albeit this uncertainty is acknowledged and
recognized in the literature [4-6], only relatively
few studies have been focused on its practical
consequences [2, 7-9].
The aim of this paper is to investigate effects of
statistical uncertainties on structural reliability
their treatment. For this purpose, the reliability
level of a generic structural member, subjected to
snow load is investigated. The effect of parameter
estimation and model selection uncertainty in
ground snow maxima is considered using
frequentist and Bayesian techniques. In contrast
with the typically used fixed model and ‘best’
point estimates, model averaging and uncertainty
intervals are used respectively.
The adopted techniques are not restricted to the
considered problem and can be utilized for other
random variables, phenomena as well, e.g. floods
and wind loads.

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IABSE Conference – Structural Engineering: Providing Solutions to Global Challenges
September 23-25 2015, Geneva, Switzerland

2 Conceptual framework shape factor;

, ground snow, 50-year maxima;
To study the effect of statistical uncertainties, two  permanent load;
sets of mechanical-probabilistic models with  beam span, 10 m;
different representation of the ground snow load  bay distance, 2 m.
are compared. These two model sets are referred
hereinafter as analysed and reference models, and Different load ratios are achieved by varying the
they differ solely in the ground snow distribution. mean value of the permanent load while keeping
For example, to illustrate the effect of parameter its coefficient of variation fixed. The load ratio is
estimation uncertainty, the reference model defined as:
contains the posterior mean distribution while the  ∙ !,"
analysed model uses the posterior predictive = (2)
 ∙ !," #$
distribution of ground snow. The reference model
is used to find a mean value of the resistance to where the m and k subscripts refer to mean and
reach the target reliability level, which is selected characteristic values respectively.
as 3,8 for a considered 50-year reference period.
The analysed model has the same mean resistance
and thus results based on this model show the s=μ sg•

a
effect of different ground snow representation. g

Throughout the study, different analysed- L

reference model pairs are considered to illustrate
various effects. Figure 1. Illustration of the analysed structural
member
3 Location and snow data
4.2 Probabilistic model
The ground snow data are obtained from the
Carpatclim database, covering a 50-year The properties of the random variables are
observation period (1962-2011) [10]. The used summarized in Table 1.
daily snow water equivalent data are from Table 1: Properties of random variables
Budapest, this location represents low-land areas
in the Carpathian region. Annual maxima from Variable Distr. Mean CV Ref.
winter seasons are extracted to infer the
 [-] LN 1,00 0,10 [12]
distribution of ground snow load. This approach is
referred to as the block method [11]. [kNm] LN * 0,15 [12]

 [-] LN 1,00 0,10 [13]

4 Numerical example
[-] LN 0,80 0,17 [14]
4.1 Mechanical model ,% [kN/m ]
2
† 0,4‡ 0,7‡ [10]
The mechanical model and loads of the analysed
& [kN/m ]
2
N § 0,10 [13]
structural member are presented in Figure 1. The
flexural failure of a mid-span cross-section is * Based on the FORM analysis to reach ()*+,) =
selected as a representative ultimate limit state: 3,8 with a fixed coefficient of variation.
† Gumbel, GEV, LN2, LN3 [15].
 ‡ Using unbiased moment estimates of the sample.

 =  ∙ −  ∙  ∙ , +  ∙  ∙ (1) § Varied to get different load ratios ().

For the annual ground snow load (,%) the sample
where:
 resistance model uncertainty; mean and coefficient of variation (CV) are
resistance; provided since these are also dependent on the
 load effect model uncertainty; fitted distribution type and technique applied to

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infer parameters of a distribution. The skewness
of the analysed sample is 1,6, indicating Fréchet-
type distribution family [16]. The commonly used
Gumbel, generalised extreme value (GEV), two-
parameter (LN2) and three-parameter lognormal
(LN3) distributions are applied to represent the
annual ground snow load [15]. The connection
between the 1-year and 50-year maxima
distributions is established by assuming that the
annual maxima are mutually independent.
5 Statistical analysis
Frequentist and Bayesian statistical techniques are
applied to fit models to the snow maxima, and to
quantify statistical uncertainties. Frequentist
statistics bases the inference on comparing the
relative likelihood of datasets given a parameter
value, /01|3456164, while Bayesian
statistics bases inference on the relative evidence
of the parameter values given a dataset,
/3456164|01 [17]. For the current
analysis the most important difference is that the
Bayesian approach treats parameters as random
variables, thus makes it possible to integrate
uncertainties in their estimation into the failure
probability.
Maximum likelihood (ML) and posterior mean
(B.PM) are used as point estimates per frequentist
and Bayesian approaches, respectively.
Accordingly, the distributions specified by these
point estimates are referred to as maximum
likelihood (ML) and posterior mean (B.PM)
distributions.
5.1 Parameter estimation uncertainty
5.1.1 Frequentist - confidence interval
In the frequentist paradigm the uncertainty
interval – to express parameter estimation
uncertainty – is termed confidence interval and
the delta method is used here to establish these
intervals [11]. This approximate method always
5.1.2 Bayesian - credible interval
Bayesian uncertainty intervals are called credible
intervals and can be constructed from the
posterior distribution of the parameters.
Approximate credible intervals can be constructed
using an approach similar to the delta method [6]
for derived parameters where the evaluation of
the likelihood function is expensive. The point
estimate is obtained by using the point estimate
of the parameters (mean), and the covariance
matrix is derived from the joint distribution
function of the parameters.
The parameter estimation uncertainty can be
incorporated into the distribution by averaging
over the posterior distribution of parameters:
37 = 8: 37|9 ∙ 39|01 ∙ 09 (3)
37 is the posterior predictive distribution [18].
5.2 Model selection uncertainty
Model selection uncertainty is the uncertainty in
the type of the probabilistic model, and it is also
stems from the scarcity of information. Herein it is
treated considering different models, and
averaging them based on their ‘goodness’.
5.2.1 Frequentist model averaging (FMA)
For  number of models (;), the model-averaged
point estimate (<=) can be obtained as the
weighted average of the model point estimates
(<=> ) [19]:
<= = ∑A =
>B% @> ∙ <> (4)
where @> is the Akaike weight corresponding to
model C that is calculated using the sample size
corrected Akaike information criterion. The
variance of the averaged parameter can be
estimated as follows [19]:
I
produces symmetric confidence intervals; vaFr<= = ∑A F r<=>  + <=> − <= J
>B% @> ∙ Hva (5)
although the real intervals are often skewed. Yet it
is deemed sufficient here since confidence The averaging can be conducted for a selected
intervals are used only for illustrative purposes. study parameter such as a fractile or reliability
index.

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5.2.2 Bayesian model averaging (BMA) is too narrow. This is also supported by the
evidence that maxima of the sample are outside
Bayesian model averaging is based on density
of the 90% confidence interval (Figure 2). This can
functions [20]:
be observed also for other locations from the
3KLM 7 = ∑A
>B% N> ∙ 37|;>  (6) Carpatclim database with skewness exceeding 1,2.

Ground snow, annual maxima [kN/m2]

2
Strictly speaking 37|;>  is the posterior 1,5
Gumbel
FMA
LN2
FMA
predictive distribution under model C ; however, 1
for illustration the averaging is performed with the 0,5
posterior mean distributions as well. The
0
corresponding model averaged distributions are
2
denoted as BMA.PM and BMA.PP respectively. GEV LN3
1,5 FMA FMA
N> is the Bayes weight, given as:
1
PQRSR|LT ∙PLT  0,5
N> = 3;> |01 = ∑V (7)
UWX PQRSR|LU ∙PLU 
where 301|;>  is calculated from the
posterior predictive distribution under each
model, and 3;>  is the prior of the model.
In both model averaging approaches the outcome
depends on the considered model set. Herein the
GEV, Gumbel, LN3 and LN2 models are
considered, hence the results and conclusions are
conditioned on this choice.
For the Bayesian calculations vague priors are
applied for both to the parameters and to the
models as well, and numerical integration is used
to calculate the posterior and posterior predictive
distributions. Practically infinite ranges are
selected for the integrations and uniform priors
are adopted on these intervals.
5.3 Results of distribution fitting
The statistical uncertainties of ground snow
models are illustrated in return value-return
period plots with confidence intervals (Figure 2).
The solid white lines and green regions show the
ML point estimates and 90% confidence intervals
respectively; the latter illustrates the parameter
estimation uncertainty. The dashed white line and
blue region correspond to the FMA point estimate
and 90% confidence intervals respectively. The
extent of model selection uncertainty can be
judged by comparing the blue regions to the green
ones. For example for the Gumbel distribution the
blue region is considerably wider than the green,
which implies that the Gumbel confidence interval
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223
0
1,1 10 100 1000 1,1 10 100 1000
Return period [year]
Figure 2: Annual maxima return value-return
period plots with 90% confidence bands for the
selected (green + solid white) and FMA (blue +
dashed white) distributions in Gumbel space
The Bayesian analysis yields to similar results as
the frequentist, although the averaging weights
are slightly favouring the three-parameter models
over the two-parameter ones (Table 2). Both the
methods indicate that there is a strong evidence
against the LN2 model for this location.
Table 2: Summary of model averaging weights
Model Y Z
GEV 0,29 0,37
Gumbel 0,43 0,25
LN3 0,28 0,38
LN2 0,004 0,002
Table 3 shows the characteristic values for the
considered models and statistical approaches.
With the exception of LN2, which is not supported
by the data, the models yield to comparable
values. Due to parameter estimation uncertainty
the largest increase is observed for LN3, it is about
8%. The Gumbel model underestimates the model
averaged characteristic value by about 10%. The
results are in good agreement with the 1,25
kN/m2 characteristic value specified in the
Hungarian National Annex of EN 1991-1-3.
IABSE Conference – Structural Engineering: Providing Solutions to Global Challenges
September 23-25 2015, Geneva, Switzerland

Table 3: Summary of ground snow load largely underestimated by the Gumbel

characteristic values [kN/m2] model.
5
Model ML B.PM B.PP
4
GEV 1,23 1,34 1,38 3

Reliability index, β [-]

Gumbel 1,07 1,11 1,12 2 Gumbel LN2
1 FMA FMA
LN3 1,20 1,18 1,28 5
LN2 1,78 1,90 1,98 4
3
FMA 1,16 N/A N/A
2 GEV LN3
BMA N/A 1,21 1,27 1 FMA FMA

0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8

N/A - not applicable
Load ra!o, χ [-]

6 Reliability analysis Figure 3: Load ratio– reliability index plots with

6.1 Reliability index
The reliability of the selected structural member is
analysed using the First order reliability method
(FORM) considering the various probabilistic
representation of the ground snow maxima.
Initially a commonly applied Gumbel distribution
is investigated. The reference model is the Gumbel
maximum likelihood distribution while the
analysed models are the four selected maximum
likelihood and the frequentist model averaged
distributions. The reliability indices with
approximate 90% confidence intervals are
presented in Figure 3. These intervals express
solely the statistical uncertainties in the ground
snow distributions.
This analysis represents the following scenario:
Gumbel ML distribution is adopted for snow
maxima and a structural member is designed to
achieve the target reliability. The failure
probability is then calculated assuming that the
snow maxima follows other distributions. Figure 3
shows the followings:
• The distribution type has substantial effect on
the reliability, e.g. for large load ratios the
GEV model yields to about 50 times larger
failure probability than the Gumbel.
• All models yield to smaller reliability index
than the reference Gumbel.
• Compared to the FMA model, the failure
probability and uncertainty intervals are
90% confidence bands for the selected (green +
solid white) and FMA (blue + dashed white)
ground snow distributions, using Gumbel ML as
reference model
As the LN2 model is clearly far from the FMA, and
not supported by the data (Table 2), it is discarded
from the following analyses. The same analysis
with B.PM models yields to similar results as those
of the maximum likelihood based. Since the Bayes
weights prefer the GEV and LN3 models, the
underestimation of Gumbel model is even larger
than in the case of FMA.
Figure 4 shows the effect of statistical
uncertainties (here the reference model is the
B.PM for each selected model, hence the solid
green line is horizontal, indicating the 3,8 value).
The analysed models are the B.PP and BMA
models. The main observations from Figure 4 are
as follows:
• The effect of parameter estimation
uncertainty within the Gumbel model is
small; however the model uncertainty has
substantial effect, significantly exceeding an
order of magnitude in failure probability.
• For GEV and LN3 the consideration of
parameter estimation uncertainty gives about
20 and 5 times larger failure probability,
respectively.
• These effects are rapidly increasing with
increasing load ratio and reaching a relatively
stable level after ratio of 0,3.

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4
3,5
Reliability index, β [-]
3 BMA.PM
Gumbel
2,5
4
3,5
3 of observations. For other phenomenon, such as
GEV LN3
2,5
0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 0 0,2
Load ra"o, χ [-]
Figure 4: Load ratio – reliability index plots for
models with (dash-dot) and without parameter
estimation uncertainty (solid).
Table 2indicates minor differences in the
characteristic values for the selected probabilistic
models. Contrary to this the reliability indices in
Figure 4suggest the model selection is a key issue
for reliability analysis. Consequently, comparison
of characteristic values seems to be insufficient to
support decision about appropriate probabilistic
model.
7 Discussion
The main focus of this paper is the quantification
and propagation of statistical uncertainties. From
a broader engineering perspective that views
reliability analysis as a tool for decision making,
the model selection uncertainty problem is
recommended to be resolved by agreeing on a
conventional distribution type [5, 21]. The authors
support this approach. However, the decision on
the selected distribution should be backed by
appropriate techniques for model uncertainty
analysis. For safety-critical facilities and actions it
still might be desirable to analyse this source of
uncertainty in detail.
Regarding parameter estimation uncertainty it is
argued that it should be considered in reliability
studies by using the posterior predictive
distribution [22, 23]. The main arguments are that
reliability analysis is inherently predictive, the
failure probability is governed by the very
uncertain distribution tails, and after the selection
of distribution function it is unambiguous
construct the posterior predictive estimates.
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B.PM
The presented uncertainty interval construction
B.PP techniques require no or several additional limit
state function evaluations as compared to the
BMA.PP standard reliability methods such as FORM and
thus are applicable to complex problems as well.
It should be noted that the results are based on
the analysis of a single location with fixed number
wind extremes, which are typically following
Weibull distribution, the effects are anticipated to
0,4 0,6 0,8
be smaller. However, smaller number of
observations can considerably increase statistical
uncertainties. Moreover, it is expected that these
uncertainties can be reduced by taking into
account more informative prior information that is
often available.
8 Conclusions
The following conclusions are drawn from the
analysis of the effect of statistical uncertainties on
structural reliability:
• The effect of parameter estimation
uncertainty within the Gumbel model is
small; however the model uncertainty has
substantial effect, considerable exceeding an
order of magnitude in failure probability.
• The distribution choice may lead to 50-times
increase in failure probability.
• For the generalised extreme value and three-
parameter lognormal distributions the
consideration of parameter estimation
uncertainty can yield to about 20- and 5-
times increase in failure probability,
respectively.
• The use of ‘best’ point estimates such as
maximum likelihood estimator are not
conservative and can have practically
significant effect.
The following practical recommendations and
observations are made based on the presented
and previous studies by the authors [22, 24, 25]:
1) For common structures and standardization:
• Consensus on the conventional distribution
type is needed.
• The commonly applied Gumbel model for
annual maxima is often inadequate, i.e.
underestimates failure probability and has
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September 23-25 2015, Geneva, Switzerland
deceptively narrow uncertainty interval, this
model assumption should be revisited.
• Bayesian approach is recommended to
handle parameter estimation uncertainties.
However, further studies should clarify which
probabilistic model, e.g. posterior mean or
posterior predictive, should be applied in the
framework of economic optimization, and
derivation of safety factors.
2) For structures which require fully probabilistic
risk assessment framework:
• Bayesian statistics is promoted to incorporate
model selection and parameter estimation
uncertainty.
• Generalised extreme value distribution is
recommended for probabilistic modelling of
extremes.
• Inclusion of all available data and prior
information is recommended, however
guidance on priors is needed.
The consideration of statistical uncertainties can
be especially important for predicting extremes
under changing climate for which one cannot rely
on historical observations.
9 Acknowledgements
This work was partly supported by the
International Visegrad Fund Intra-Visegrad
Scholarship (contract no. 51401089) and by the
Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic
(project no. VG20122015089). The calculations are
completed using Matlab [26] and FERUM [27], the
work and commitment of the developers of these
applications are highly appreciated. All the related
codes/scripts, processed data, and results are
available from the corresponding author.
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