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Holistic Approach in Engineering Design - Controlling Risks from Accidental Hazards in Bridge Design

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Holistic Approach in Engineering Design - Controlling Risks from Accidental Hazards in Bridge Design Holistic approach in engineering design - controlling risks from accidental hazards in bridge design Björnsson, Ivar 2015 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Björnsson, I. (2015). Holistic approach in engineering design - controlling risks from accidental hazards in bridge design. Lund University (Media-Tryck). 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LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 Holistic approach in engineering design Controlling risks from accidental hazards in bridge design Ívar Björnsson DOCTORAL DISSERTATION by due permission of the Faculty of Engineering, Lund University, Sweden. To be defended at Lecture hall MA1 in the Mathematics Annex building, Sölvegatan 20, Lund on the 6th of November 2015 at 10.15. Faculty opponent Professor Michael Havbro Faber Technical University of Denmark Organization: Document name: LUND UNIVERSITY DOCTORAL DISSERTATION Division of Structural Engineering Date of issue: 2015-10-13 Author(s): Sponsoring organization: Ívar Björnsson Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) Title and subtitle: Holistic approach in engineering design- Controlling risks from accidental hazards in bridge design Abstract: Engineering design, in concise terms, is what engineers do using what they know. It is the underlying decision making activity that determines what is to be built and how it should be built. An ever present requirement in engineering design is that the structure should be safe. While historical approaches to safety in design relied on experience and engineering judgment, modern approaches have rationalized uncertainty in an effort to treat risks in a more consistent and objective way. Concurrent to these advancements, design codes have been developed which include safety formats that are calibrated using these rationalized approaches. This thesis investigates the limitations of the design codes in controlling risks in engineering design and proposes that a complementary approach – involving case-specific risk assessments – is necessary for addressing the risks that are not properly treated by the design codes. The main advantage of such an approach is that: • it broadens the scope of assessment to consider structural systems and possibly non-structural constituents; • it is also applicable during the conceptual design phase for the bridge structure; and • it is complementary to current codified approaches While similar approaches are common in large scale construction projects they are rarely applied in the design of more conventional bridge structures. However, in this thesis it is argued that the application of such approaches is also useful in more common bridge projects to better control risks inadequately treated by design based on code compliance. A framework for a holistic risk-informed approach is provided which focuses on the conceptual design of bridge structures and on the control of risks from accidental hazards. Case studies are conducted to highlight the usefulness of the approach and to help develop crucial aspects of the approach while providing useful background information for its possible implementation in future projects. Specific attention is also paid to the modeling of risks from heavy goods vehicle (HGV) impacts to bridge substructures – a design situation which was found to be inadequate treated using current codified approaches. Key words: design, codes, accidental, extreme, bridges, holistic, approach, robustness,rik, uncertainty Classification system and/or index terms (if any) Supplementary bibliographical information: Language: English ISRN LUTVDG/TVBK-1048/15-SE(258) ISSN and key title: 0349-4969, Report TVBK 1048 ISBN 978-91-87993-03-9 Recipient’s notes Number of pages: 258 Price Security classification I, the undersigned, being the copyright owner of the abstract of the above-mentioned dissertation, hereby grant to all reference sources permission to publish and disseminate the abstract of the above-mentioned dissertation. Signature Date Holistic approach in engineering design Controlling risks from accidental hazards in bridge design Ívar Björnsson © Ívar Björnsson Faculty of Engineering, Division of Structural Engineering P.O. Box 118, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden Report TVBK-1048 ISBN 978-91-87993-03-9 ISRN LUTVDG/TVBK-1048/15-SE(258) ISSN 0349-4969 Printed in Sweden by Media-Tryck, Lund University Lund 2015 Preface No matter how vigorously a ‘science’ of design may be pushed, the successful design of real things in a contingent world will always be based more on art than on science. Unquantifiable judgments and choices are the elements that determine the way a design comes together. Engineering design is simply that kind of process. It always has been; it always will be. Eugene S. Ferguson (1992, p. 194) The above quote by Ferguson from his book entitled ‘Engineering and the Mind’s Eye’ helps highlight some of the issues I have come to appreciate during my stay as doctoral candidate at the Division of Structural Engineering in Lund University. Initially I was fascinated by the ‘science’ of engineering and of how our understanding of the mechanisms in nature could be formulated so eloquently using rationalized approaches – where the only obstacle to ultimate understanding was our own ignorance. However, as I progressed in my research I started more and more to believe that such a viewpoint could be counter-productive when it came to engineering design – which is what we, as engineers, ultimately do. To start, problems faced by engineers when they design structures are ill-structured and do not comply with the neatly set boundaries and constraints which are prerequisites for rigorous scientific inquiry. Furthermore, strict adherence to theoretical and rational inquiry cuts out the middle-man – namely, the engineer himself. I could not accept such an aversion to subjectivity. Isn’t judgment – by its very nature subjective – central to what we as engineers do? Can there be engineering design without the engineer? I am by no means an expert in the philosophy of engineering, or of the engineering method, and so cannot provide much in the way of answering these questions. However, it was questions such as these – coupled with many fruitful discussions with my supervisors and with my other work colleagues – that have influenced the progression of my research away from the detailed and specific towards the broad and holistic. In this regard, I will provide a short background. My journey as a doctoral candidate started off, some 5 years ago, with the idea of investigating robustness in bridge design. In fact, the initial title of the project was ‘Robust design of bridges for a reduced vulnerability in the road network’. I had by that time done some research for my master thesis on this topic and had some background knowledge of this issue. What struck me at the time was the variety of different interpretations of robustness – what it meant and how it should be i considered in a design context. This, in itself was not an issue – one could simply ally oneself with a certain interpretation and go from there and, initially, this is what I had done. However, the more I investigated this topic the less convinced I became by some of the approaches that were advocated. It took me a while to understand that it wasn’t so much the methods in themselves, but the underlying principles guiding their developments. There was a desire for robustness to be something quantifiable, something that can be compared with some criteria in the same way that a calculated stress in a steel beam should be kept below a design yield stress. Personally I feel that such a desire is misleading and that any absolute measure of robustness losses meaning in the face of the large uncertainties involved. Thus in my own work I’ve chosen not to use the term so loosely. For one, if you mention robustness to someone, a researcher or practicing engineering, they usually already have strong opinions of what it ‘really means’ and how it should be ensured in design. I chose instead to focus on some of the underlying issues that the word represents – namely, the treatment of risks in engineering design which are difficult to predict a priori. In considering this problem, I felt that focus should not be on the very specific and the detailed but on the very broad and of the whole. The problem, in my opinion, could not be generalized for all structures but requires case-specific investigations. From these considerations evolved the approach I have proposed in my thesis. I cannot say with any certainty that this approach is the correct one, however, I do believe it goes a long way in addressing some of the risks in engineering design that current codified approaches cannot adequately address. All in all, I believe that the answer lies in allowing engineers more autonomy in solving these problems and not in applying external constraints in an attempt to prescribe a generalized solution. Realizing this in practice will require that the current system for enforcing regulation, at least in Sweden, is adjusted. Hopefully this thesis helps in providing impetus for such an endeavor or at the very least contributes to the debate of how to better balance autonomy and compliance while ensuring safety and other performance criteria are satisfied.
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