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IABSE News

Interview with Jochen Köhler, Chair, IABSE Task Group 1.6: Benefits for Practical Application of Risk and Reliability Considerations in Structural Engineering

IABSE TG 1.6.Chair, Jochen Köhler, Norway

IABSE TG 1.6.Chair, Jochen Köhler, Norway

Please introduce yourselves to our SEI readers.

My name is Jochen Köhler, and I am a professor of Structural Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. The central theme of my scholarly activities, encompassing both research and education, revolves around the optimal utilisation of information to support engineering decisions. I joined the IABSE committee C1 in 2013, and I have been since then an active member in several task groups, among them I am leading Task Group, TG1.6 on the “Benefits for Practical Application of Risk and Reliability Considerations in Structural Engineering”.

Please tell us about the benefits for the practical application of risk and reliability considerations in Structural Engineering.

Structural reliability is one of the essential requirements for structures. At the same time, structural reliability is generally not considered explicitly in engineering projects but implicitly by applying structural design codes and their corresponding simplified safety concepts. The simplicity of these concepts comes alongside rather rough generalisations – typical structural design situations are well represented on average, but particular and more specific design situations are not well covered by the safety concept of the design standard. This might lead to either unsafe or overly safe design solutions when using the standards.

The application of reliability methods in particular engineering projects can increase the resolution of the engineering analysis and prove the satisfaction of reliability requirements explicitly. The reliability assessment can also be the basis for a risk analysis in which the optimal allocation of resources into structural reliability can be identified. The practical application of risk and reliability methods seems rewarding in cases where the structures are unusual. Unusual not only in terms of size, material, or geometry but also in terms of uncertainty, consequences, and possible mitigation measures. It is worthwhile noting that the assessment of existing structures falls into this category.

How does your TG plan to mitigate advanced methods in risk and reliability assessment of structures and provide examples of practical implementation?

The objective of TG 1.6 is to disseminate recent scientific results to a broad civil engineering audience. This was done so far by organising mini-symposia and workshops about highly relevant topics in the general topic domain of Commission 1 – “Performance and Requirements”. The TG was initiated in Fall 2018, and in 2019, we organised a mini-symposium on Risk Assessment in Civil Engineering at the IABSE Conference Guimarães 2019. The symposium had several contributions from researchers and practitioners and was characterised by exciting discussions during and after the symposium. The plan was to follow up with a joint IABSE and JCSS workshop on Risk Acceptance Criteria in Civil Engineering in 2020. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic crossed these plans, and after several attempts, we managed to organise this workshop in June 2023 in Trondheim, Norway.

Could you please share the main discussion points and the workshop's outcome with our readers? 

Please let me first elaborate on the motivation for this workshop. Requirements to safety and acceptable risks to life and health have strong implications on the present allocation of shared resources and trade-offs play a crucial role for sustainable societal development.

Thus, to ensure adherence to safety, while facilitating optimal and sustainable allocation of publicly shared resources, it is paramount to establish and act in accordance with an adequate rationale.

It has for long time been clear to professionals dealing with safety and risk that such a commonly accepted rationale has not yet been implemented. Presently a variety of incoherent regulations, standards and codes are applied - and what is understood as best practices of safety management may not always be justified with respect to an adequate level of safety, where the resources used are in balance with objectives of the society.

The motivation for this workshop was, with a focus on safety management within civil engineering, to bring together the main stakeholders: regulators, public authorities, planners, designers, owners and operators of infrastructures as well as leading experts from industry and academia, with the objective to pin down the main reasons for the present situation, to agree on the actions needed to correct the situation and finally on the allocation of responsibilities for implementing these.

The discussions took place alongside 14 invited lectures from all main stakeholder groups. Besides the expected controversies, agreement on the following aspects was reached:

  • − Any activity that is supported by engineering structures includes risks.

  • − Risks are accepted either implicitly (without any analysis) or explicitly (following an analysis).

  • − Explicit risk acceptance should be based on the relative comparison of different risk mitigation actions and give provisions on when it is allowed to stop risk mitigation.

  • − The analysis should be based on the best available knowledge.

  • − Risk acceptance is not about satisfying a fixed risk level but about evaluating the effect of potential mitigation action and their effectiveness.

It is planned to publish a comprehensive report that reflects the essence of the discussion on the workshop.

You are also a member of other Task Groups, are there any mutual projects that you are working towards in tandem with IABSE or any other association/group?

Yes, I recently joined the TG 1.10 “Utilization of traffic data in research, design, and assessment of bridges”. IABSE is, in general, an excellent facilitator of the critical dialogue between practice and academia, and there are many more very interesting TG initiatives. The only reason for not joining more groups is the finite time availability.

On behalf of all our readers, we would like to congratulate you on getting elected as the new President of JCSS, please let us know your vision.

Thank you! The Joint Committee on Structural Safety is an expert committee that was founded by the Liaison Committee of the main civil engineering associations in 1971. Our aim is to provide general knowledge and decision support for the life-cycle-based management of safety, reliability, risk, robustness, durability, resilience and sustainability for the built environment based on sound scientific principles and with an open eye for the applications in practice. The results of our internal committee work are well documented on our website in the form of guidelines and background documents about reliability and risk-based decision-making. Our members are also active in related subgroups of the associations, e.g. some are very active in IABSE and national and international standardisation committees. These personal connections are also vital for disseminating our results and the corresponding implementation into practical projects as well as codes and standards.

Given the tremendous challenges our society is facing, i.e. regarding the expected changes in our environment due to climate change and the increasing pressure on our natural resources, the international civil engineering community is in demand to find solutions that provide the foundation for our sustainable development. The JCSS has much to offer in this regard, as finding the optimal balance between resource efficiency and safety is becoming more important in all kinds of civil engineering decision contexts. My vision is that we, as an expert committee, become even better in communicating and disseminating the possibilities and benefits of advanced risk and reliability-based approaches to engineering problems.

What do you feel is IABSE’s role in bringing a change in the global structural engineering community? How can we as an Association dealing with all structures, all materials, create an impact in the way structural engineers think and build the world?

A paradigm shift in building sector is crucial for the sustainable development of the global society. The demand on buildings and infrastructure is increasing and at the same time emissions must be reduced and resources saved. To tackle the challenges, the engineering community is in need to rethink “traditions” – material effectiveness is becoming much more important than before. IABSE, as an international civil engineering association, is an important platform to discuss and disseminate solutions that will constitute the necessary paradigm shift among its members and the corresponding stakeholders. 

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