Principles of risk assessment of engineered systems

Authors

Michael H. Faber, Marc A. Maes, Jack W. Baker, Ton Vrouwenvelder and Tsuyoshi Takada

Abstract

The present paper summarizes recent work performed within the Joint Committee on Structural Safety (JCSS) on the development of general principles for risk assessment for engineered facilities. The JCSS principles are forming a part of the background for a new ISO Guideline on Risk Assessment presently in development. The approach presented utilizes to a high degree the hierarchical characteristics of typical engineered systems and introduces a quantitative definition of system characteristics such as exposure, vulnerability and robustness. The approach suggested puts special emphasis on the assessment of so-called indirect consequences associated with loss of system functionality and directly related to lack of robustness. The paper describes the general principles proposed by the JCSS and outlines how these may be applied and implemented in practical risk assessment and risk management contexts.

Published in/by

Proceedings ICASP10, 10th Intern. Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering, Tokyo, Japan, 31.07- 03.08.2007.