• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2009

The present contribution addresses uncertainty quantification and uncertainty propagation in structural mechanics using stochastic analysis. Presently available procedures to describe uncertainties in load and resistance within a suitable mathematical framework are shortly addressed. Monte Carlo methods are proposed for studying the variability in the structural properties and for their propagation to the response. The general applicability and versatility of Monte Carlo Simulation is demonstrated in the context with computational models that have been developed for deterministic structural analysis. After discussing Direct Monte Carlo Simulation for the assessment of the response variability, some recently developed advanced Monte Carlo methods applied for reliability assessment are described, such as Importance Sampling for linear uncertain structures subjected to Gaussian loading, Line Sampling in linear dynamics and Subset simulation. The numerical example demonstrates the applicability of Line Sampling to general linear uncertain FE systems under Gaussian distributed excitation.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.19-43
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• 2014

A risk assessment framework for evaluating building structures is implemented in this study. This framework allows considering sources of uncertainty both on structural capacity and seismic demand. In particular randomness on seismic load, incident angle, material properties, floor mass and structural damping are considered; in addition the choice of fibre modelling versus plastic hinge model is also considered as a source of uncertainty. The main objective of this work is to study the contribution of these sources of uncertainty on the fragilities of steel and steel-reinforced concrete composite 3D building structures. The fragility curves are expressed in the form of a two-parameter lognormal distribution where vertical statistics in conjunction with metaheuristic optimization are implemented for calculating the two parameters.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.589-597
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• 2017

This study aims to verify experimentally the specifications of the data acquisition system required for the precise measurement of signals in an underwater explosion (UNDEX) experiment. The three data acquisition systems with different specifications are applied to compare their precision relatively on maximum shock pressures from UNDEX. In addition, a method of assessing the acquired signals is suggested by introducing the concept of measurement uncertainty. The underwater explosion experiments are repeated five times under same conditions, and assessment is conducted on maximum quantities acquired from underwater pressure sensors. It is confirmed that the concept of measurement uncertainty is very useful method in accrediting the measurement results of UNDEX experiments.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.673-682
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• 2018

One of the most widely used methods to estimate core damage during a nuclear power plant accident is containment radiation measurement. The evolution of severe accidents is extremely complex, leading to uncertainty in the containment dose rate (CDR). Therefore, it is difficult to accurately determine core damage. This study proposes to conduct uncertainty analysis of CDR for core damage assessment. First, based on source term estimation, the Monte Carlo (MC) and point-kernel integration methods were used to estimate the probability density function of the CDR under different extents of core damage in accident scenarios with late containment failure. Second, the results were verified by comparing the results of both methods. The point-kernel integration method results were more dispersed than the MC results, and the MC method was used for both quantitative and qualitative analyses. Quantitative analysis indicated a linear relationship, rather than the expected proportional relationship, between the CDR and core damage fraction. The CDR distribution obeyed a logarithmic normal distribution in accidents with a small break in containment, but not in accidents with a large break in containment. A possible application of our analysis is a real-time core damage estimation program based on the CDR.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2022.05a
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• pp.137-137
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• 2022

Evaluating interpolated rainfall uncertainty of hydrological models caused by different interpolation methods for basins where can not fully collect rainfall data are necessary. In this study, the adaptive MCMC method under effects of ILFs was used to analyze the interpolated rainfall uncertainty of the SURR model for Gunnam basin, Korea. Three events were used to calibrate and one event was used to validate the posterior distributions of unknown parameters. In this work, the performance of four ILFs on uncertainty of interpolated rainfall was assessed. The indicators of p_factor (percentage of observed streamflow included in the uncertainty interval) and r_factor (the average width of the uncertainty interval) were used to evaluate the uncertainty of the simulated streamflow. The results showed that the uncertainty bounds illustrated the slight differences from various ILFs. The study confirmed the importance of the likelihood function selection in the application the adaptive Bayesian MCMC method to the uncertainty assessment of the SURR model caused by interpolated rainfall.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.200-208
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• 2001

The purpose of this study was to understand the nature and structure of "uncertainty of chronically ill patients" by explaining it more scientifically. This study is based on the unique experiences, which individual uncertainty experiences differ from others. In this sense, Q-methodology which includes self-psychology and abductive logics is applied to the study. The results indicate that there are six types of uncertainty of chronically ill patients : my own fault, self-esteem loss, self-care determination, cure-doubt, reality-restructure, and past-tenacity reality-absence. Thus, "uncertainty of chronically ill patients" is defined from the study as the process in which continuous transition and evaluation of possibility cause changes in human recognition, attitude, action, etc.. The significance of the study is threefold : (1) discovery of six types of uncertainty of chronically ill patients in Korean people, (2) the better understanding of "uncertainty of chronically ill patients", (3) possible developments of nursing concept and assessment and intervention technique based on the new dimension of the understanding in uncertainty for nursing of chronically ill patients from this research.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 1990.04a
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• pp.272-288
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• 1990

The uncertainty quantification process in probabilistic Risk Assessment usually involves a specification of the uncertainty in the input data and the propagation of this uncertainty to the final risk results. The distributional sensitivity analysis is to study the impact of the various assumptions made during the quantification of input parameter uncertainties on the final output uncertainty. The uncertainty importance of input parameters, in this case, should reflect the degree of changes in the whole output distribution and not just in a point estimate value. A measure of the uncertainty importance is proposed in the present paper. The measure is called the distributional sensitivity measure(DSM) and explicitly derived from the definition of the Kullback's discrimination information. The DSM is applied to three typical discrimination information. The DSM is applied to three typical cases of input distributional changes: 1) Uncertainty is completely eliminated, 2) Uncertainty range is increased by a factor of 10, and 3) Type of distribution is changed. For all three cases of application, the DSM-based importance ranking agrees very well with the observed changes of output distribution while other statistical parameters are shown to be insensitive.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.267-274
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• 2004

Since there is a large variation in measurements of the thickness of corroded elements, the thickness of corroded elements are considered as imprecise elements. There is also a considerable degree of uncertainty in a visual assessment of thickness loss. The remaining thickness of a severly corroded element may be represented by an imprecise which expresses the range over which there is uncertainty about the thickness. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to propose a new methodology to safety assessment using imprecise reliability into conventional safety assessment frameworks. For this purpose, this study presents a safety assessment model using Imprecise reliability for large civil structures and demonstrates the applicability of the approach to cable-stayed bridge projects.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.223-240
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• 2009

As in any engineering application, the problem of structural assessment should face the different uncertainties present in real world. The main source of uncertainty in Health Monitoring System (HMS) applications are those related to the sensor accuracy, the theoretical models and the variability in structural parameters and applied loads. In present work, two methodologies have been developed to deal with these uncertainties in order to adopt reliable decisions related to the presence of damage. A simple example, a steel beam analysis, is considered in order to establish a liable comparison between them. Also, such methodologies are used with a developed structural assessment algorithm that consists in a direct and consistent comparison between sensor data and numerical model results, both affected by uncertainty. Such algorithm is applied to a simple concrete laboratory beam, tested till rupture, to show it feasibility and operational process. From these applications several conclusions are derived with a high value, regarding the final objective of the work, which is the implementation of this algorithm within a HMS, developed and applied into a prototype structure.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.523-533
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• 2018

The objective of this study is to analyze uncertainties of ensemble-based streamflow prediction method for model parameters and input data. ESP (Ensemble Streamflow Prediction) and BAYES-ESP (Bayesian-ESP) based on ABCD rainfall-runoff model were selected as streamflow prediction method. GLUE (Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation) was applied for the analysis of parameter uncertainty. The analysis of input uncertainty was performed according to the duration of meteorological scenarios for ESP. The result showed that parameter uncertainty was much more significant than input uncertainty for the ensemble-based streamflow prediction. It also indicated that the duration of observed meteorological data was appropriate to using more than 20 years. And the BAYES-ESP was effective to reduce uncertainty of ESP method. It is concluded that this analysis is meaningful for elaborating characteristics of ESP method and error factors of ensemble-based streamflow prediction method.