TY - JOUR A1 - Zhang, W.-H. A1 - Qin, J. A1 - Lu, D.-G. A1 - Thöns, Sebastian A1 - Havbro Faber, M. T1 - Vol-informed decision-making for SHM system arrangement N2 - Structural health monitoring systems have been widely implemented to provide real-time continuous data support and to ensure structural safety in the context of structural integrity management. However, the quantification of the potential benefits of structural health monitoring systems has not yet attracted widespread attention. At the same time, there is an urgent need to develop strategies, such as optimizing the monitoring period, monitoring variables, and other factors, to maximize the potential benefits of structural health monitoring systems. Considering the continuity of structural health monitoring information, a framework is developed in this article to support decision-making for structural Health monitoring systems arrangement in the context of structural integrity management, which integrates the concepts of value of information and risk-based inspection planning based on an approach which utilizes a conjugate prior probability distribution for updating of the probabilistic models of structural performances based on structural health Monitoring information. An example considering fatigue degradation of steel structures is investigated to illustrate the application of the proposed framework. The considered example shows that the choice of monitoring variables, the Monitoring period, and the monitoring quality may be consistently optimized by the application of the proposed framework and approach. Finally, discussions and conclusions are provided to clarify the potential benefits of the proposed Framework with a special view to practical applications of structural health monitoring systems. KW - Value of information KW - Structural health monitoring systems arrangement strategy KW - Structural integrity management KW - Rskbased inspection KW - Structural health monitoring information model PY - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/1475921720962736 SN - 1475-9217 VL - 21 IS - 1 SP - 37 EP - 58 PB - SAGE Journals CY - USA AN - OPUS4-53064 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Brüske, H. A1 - Thöns, Sebastian T1 - Value of pre‐construction proof loading information for structural design N2 - We introduce a new concept that enables a decision analyst to explore and quantify the benefits of decision alternatives that exceed the scope of a pre‐posterior decision or value of information analysis. This new concept, namely, the expected value of sample information and action analysis, facilitates to examine decision alternatives that become only possible with additional knowledge. The concept is introduced by taking basis in proof load testing as a source of (pre‐)posterior knowledge. Pre‐posterior decision analysis is necessary in order to optimize the structural design through proof loading information. The application of the common value of information Analysis and the new value of information and action analysis are demonstrated in a case study. KW - Value of information and action KW - Pre‐construction proof loading KW - Pre‐posterior decision analysis KW - Structural design optimization PY - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/we.2398 SN - 1095-4244 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - John Wiley & Sons AN - OPUS4-48804 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Long, Lijia A1 - Alcover, I. F. A1 - Thöns, Sebastian T1 - Utility analysis for SHM durations and service life extension of welds on steel bridge deck N2 - Optimization of the duration of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) campaigns is rarely performed. This article provides a utility-based solution to posteriorly determine: i) optimal monitoring Durations and ii) the extension of the service life of the welds on a steel bridge deck. The approach is Illustrated with a case study focusing on remaining fatigue life estimation of the welds on the orthotropic steel deck of the Great Belt Bridge, in Denmark. The identification of the optimal monitoring duration and the decision about extending the service life of the welds are modelled by maximizing the expected benefits and minimizing the structural risks. The results are a parametric analysis, mainly on the effect of the target probability, benefit, cost of failure, cost of rehabilitation, cost of monitoring and Discount rate on the posterior utilities of monitoring strategies and the choice of service life considering the risk variability and the costs and benefits models. The results show that the decision on short-term monitoring, i.e., 1 week every six months, is overall the most valued SHM strategy. In addition, it is found that the target probability is the most sensitive parameter affecting the optimal SHM Durations and service life extension of the welds. KW - Fatigue KW - Monitoring strategy KW - Orthotropic steel deck KW - Structural health monitoring KW - Utility and decision theory PY - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-521719 SN - 1573-2479 VL - 18 IS - 4 SP - 492 EP - 504 PB - Taylor Francis Online AN - OPUS4-52171 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Long, Lijia A1 - Thöns, Sebastian A1 - Döhler, M. T1 - The effects of SHM system parameters on the value of damage detection information N2 - This paper addresses how the value of damage detection Information depends on key Parameters of the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) system including number of sensors and sensor locations. The Damage Detection System (DDS) provides the information by comparing ambient vibration measurements of a (healthy) reference state with measurements of the current structural system. The performance of DDS method depends on the physical measurement properties such as the number of sensors, sensor positions, measuring length and sensor type, measurement noise, ambient excitation and sampling frequency, as well as on the data processing algorithm including the chosen type I error for the indication threshold. The quantification of the value of Information (VoI) is an expected utility based Bayesian decision analysis method for quantifying the difference of the expected economic benefits with and without information. The (pre-)posterior probability is computed utilizing the Bayesian updating theorem for all possible indications. If changing any key parameters of DDS, the updated probability of system failure given damage detection information will be varied due to different indication of probability of damage, which will result in changes of value of damage detection information. The DDS system is applied in a statically determinate Pratt truss bridge girder. Through the analysis of the value of information with different SHM system characteristics, the settings of DDS can be optimized for minimum expected costs and risks before implementation. T2 - 9th European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring CY - Manchester, UK DA - 10.07.2018 KW - SHM KW - Damage detection system KW - Value of information PY - 2018 SP - 375 EP - 384 AN - OPUS4-46190 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rastayesh, S. A1 - Long, Lijia A1 - Sørensen, J. D. A1 - Thöns, Sebastian T1 - Risk Assessment and Value of Action Analysis for Icing Conditions of Wind Turbines Close to Highways N2 - The paper presents research results from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network INFRASTAR in the field of reliability approaches for decision-making for wind turbines and bridges. This paper addresses the application of Bayesian decision analysis for installation of heating systems in wind turbine blades in cases where an ice detection system is already installed in order to allow wind turbines to be placed close to highways. Generally, application of ice detection and heating systems for wind turbines is very relevant in cases where the wind turbines are planned to be placed close to urban areas and highways, where risks need to be considered due to icing events, which may lead to consequences including human fatality, functional disruptions, and/or economic losses. The risk of people being killed in a car passing on highways near a wind turbine due to blades parts or ice pieces being thrown away in cases of overicing is considered in this paper. The probability of being killed per kilometer and per year is considered for three cases: blade parts thrown away as a result of a partial or total failure of a blade, ice thrown away in two cases, i.e., of stopped wind turbines and of wind turbines in operation. Risks due to blade parts being thrown away cannot be avoided, since low strengths of material, maintenance or manufacturing errors, mechanical or electrical failures may result in failure of a blade or blade part. The blade (parts) thrown away from wind turbines in operation imply possible consequences/fatalities for people near the wind turbines, including in areas close to highways. Similar consequences are relevant for ice being thrown away from wind turbine blades during icing situations. In this paper, we examine the question as to whether it is valuable to put a heating System on the blades in addition to ice detection systems. This is especially interesting in countries with limited space for placing wind turbines; in addition, it is considered if higher power production can be obtained due to less downtime if a heating system is installed. KW - Risk assessment KW - Value of action analysis KW - Icing conditions KW - Wind turbine KW - Blade PY - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-487805 VL - 12 IS - 14 SP - 2653-1 EP - 2653-15 PB - MDPI AN - OPUS4-48780 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Berchtold, Florian A1 - Knaust, Christian A1 - Rogge, Andreas A1 - Arnold, L. A1 - Thöns, Sebastian ED - Lönnermark, Anders ED - Ingason, Haukur T1 - Risk Analysis for Road Tunnels – A Metamodel to Efficiently Integrate Complex Fire Scenarios N2 - Fires in road tunnels constitute complex scenarios with interactions between the fire, tunnel users and safety measures. More and more methodologies for risk analysis quantify the consequences of these scenarios with complex models. Examples for complex models are the computational fluid dynamics model Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and the microscopic evacuation model FDS+Evac. However, the high computational effort of complex models often limits the number of scenarios in practice. To balance this drawback, the scenarios are often simplified. Accordingly, there is a challenge to consider complex scenarios in risk analysis. To face this challenge, we improved the metamodel used in the methodology for risk analysis presented on ISTSS 2016. In general, a metamodel quickly interpolates the consequences of few scenarios simulated with the complex models to a large number of arbitrary scenarios used in risk analysis. Now, our metamodel consists of the projection array-based design, the moving least squares method, and the prediction interval to quantify the metamodel uncertainty. Additionally, we adapted the projection array-based design in two ways: the focus of the sequential refinement on regions with high metamodel uncertainties; and the combination of two experimental designs for FDS and FDS+Evac. To scrutinise the metamodel, we analysed the effects of three sequential refinement steps on the metamodel itself and on the results of risk analysis. We observed convergence in both after the second step (ten scenarios in FDS, 192 scenarios in FDS+Evac). In comparison to ISTSS 2016, we then ran 20 scenarios in FDS and 800 scenarios in FDS+Evac. Thus, we reduced the number of scenarios remarkably with the improved metamodel. In conclusion, we can now efficiently integrate complex scenarios in risk analysis. We further emphasise that the metamodel is broadly applicable on various experimental or modelling issues in fire safety engineering. T2 - International Symposium on Tunnel Safety and Security CY - Boras, Sweden DA - 14.03.2018 KW - Risk KW - Metamodel KW - CFD KW - Evacuation KW - Uncertainty PY - 2018 SN - 978-91-88695-48-2 VL - 8 SP - 349 EP - 360 AN - OPUS4-44535 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Kinne, Marko A1 - Schneider, Ronald A1 - Thöns, Sebastian T1 - Reconstructing Stress Resultants in Wind Turbine Towers Based on Strain Measurements N2 - Support structures of offshore wind turbines are subject to cyclic stresses generated by different time-variant random loadings such as wind, waves, and currents in combinationwith the excitation by the rotor. In the design phase, the cyclic demand on wind turbine support structure is calculated and forecasted with semi or fully probabilistic engineering models. In some cases, additional cyclic stresses may be induced by construction deviations, unbalanced rotor masses and structural dynamic phenomena such as, for example, the Sommerfeld effect. Both, the significant uncertainties in the design and a validation of absence of unforeseen adverse dynamic phenomena necessitate the employment of measurement Systems on the support structures. The quality of the measurements of the cyclic demand on the support structures depends on (a) the precision of the measurement System consisting of sensors, amplifier and data normalization and (b) algorithms for analyzing and converting data to structural health information. This paper presents the probabilistic modelling and analysis of uncertainties in strain measurements performed for the purposes of reconstructing stress resultants in wind turbine towers. It is shown how the uncertainties in the strain measurements affect the uncertainty in the individual components of the reconstructed forces and moments. The analysis identifies the components of the vector of stress resultants that can be reconstructed with sufficient precision. T2 - International Conference on Uncertainty in Mechanical Engineering - ICUME CY - Online meeting DA - 07.06.2021 KW - Reconstruction of stress resultants KW - Strain measurements KW - Bayesian updating of measurement uncertainties PY - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-527987 SP - 224 EP - 235 PB - Springer AN - OPUS4-52798 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Long, Lijia A1 - Alcover, I. F. A1 - Thöns, Sebastian T1 - Quantification of the posterior utilities of SHM campaigns on an orthotropic steel bridge deck N2 - This paper contains a quantification and decision theoretical optimization of the posterior utilities for several options for monitoring campaigns on the particular case of fatigue life predictions of an orthotropic steel deck. The monitoring campaigns are defined by varying monitoring durations and phases. The decision analysis is performed with real data from the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of the Great Belt Bridge (Denmark) which, among others, consist of measured strains, pavement temperatures and traffic intensities. The fatigue loading prediction model is based on regression models linking daily averaged pavement temperatures, daily aggregated heavy-traffic Counts and derived S-N fatigue damages, all of them derived from the outcomes of different monitoring campaigns. A probabilistic methodology is utilized to calculate the fatigue reliability profiles of selected instrumented welded joints. The posterior utilities of SHM campaigns are then quantified by considering the structural fatigue reliability, various monitoring campaigns and the corresponding cost-benefit models. The decisions of identifying the optimal monitoring campaign and of extending the service life or not in conjunction with monitoring results are modelled. The optimal monitoring campaign is identified - retrospectively - by maximizing the expected benefits and minimize risks in dependency of the monitoring duration and the monitoring associated costs. The results, despite relying on a number of simplistic assumptions, pave the way towards the use of pre-posterior decision support to optimise the design of monitoring campaigns for similar bridges, with an overall goal to proof the cost efficiency of SHM approaches to civil infrastructure management. T2 - The 12th International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring CY - Stanford University, CA, USA DA - 10.09.2019 KW - SHM KW - Posterior utilities KW - Orthotropic steel bridge deck PY - 2019 SP - 265 EP - 274 AN - OPUS4-49174 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Long, Lijia A1 - Alcover, I. F. A1 - Thöns, Sebastian T1 - Quantification of the posterior utilities of SHM campaigns on an orthotropic steel bridge deck N2 - This paper contains a quantification and decision theoretical optimization of the posterior utilities for several options for monitoring campaigns on the particular case of fatigue life predictions of an orthotropic steel deck. The monitoring campaigns are defined by varying monitoring durations and phases. The decision analysis is performed with real data from the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of the Great Belt Bridge (Denmark) which, among others, consist of measured strains, pavement temperatures and traffic intensities. The fatigue loading prediction model is based on regression models linking daily averaged pavement temperatures, daily aggregated heavy-traffic Counts and derived S-N fatigue damages, all of them derived from the outcomes of different monitoring campaigns. A probabilistic methodology is utilized to calculate the fatigue reliability profiles of selected instrumented welded joints. The posterior utilities of SHM campaigns are then quantified by considering the structural fatigue reliability, various monitoring campaigns and the corresponding cost-benefit models. The decisions of identifying the optimal monitoring campaign and of extending the service life or not in conjunction with monitoring results are modelled. The optimal monitoring campaign is identified - retrospectively - by maximizing the expected benefits and minimize risks in dependency of the monitoring duration and the monitoring associated costs. The results, despite relying on a number of simplistic assumptions, pave the way towards the use of pre-posterior decision support to optimise the design of monitoring campaigns for similar bridges, with an overall goal to proof the cost efficiency of SHM approaches to civil infrastructure management. T2 - IWSHM 2019, The 12th International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring, Stanford, California, USA CY - Stanford, California, USA DA - 10.09.2019 KW - Quantification KW - SHM information KW - Steel bridge deck PY - 2019 SP - 1 EP - 9 AN - OPUS4-48481 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Bayane, I. A1 - Long, Lijia A1 - Thöns, Sebastian A1 - Brühwiler, E. T1 - Quantification of the conditional value of SHM data for the fatigue safety evaluation of a road viaduct N2 - Fatigue safety verification of existing bridges that uses ‘‘re-calculation’’ based on codes, usually results in insufficient fatigue safety, triggering invasive interventions. Instead of “re-calculation”, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) should be used for the assessment of the existing bridges. Monitoring systems provide data that can reduce uncertainties associated with the fatigue loading process and the structural resistance. The objective of this paper is to quantify the value of the SHM system implemented in a 60-years-old road viaduct to investigate its fatigue safety, through modeling of the fundamental decisions of performing monitoring in conjunction with its expected utility. The quantification of the conditional value of information is based on the decision tree analysis that considers the structural reliability, various decision scenarios as well as the cost-benefit assessments. This leads to a quantitative decision basis for the owner about how much time and money can be saved while the viaduct fulfills its function reliably and respects the safety requirements. The originality of this paper stands in the application of the value of information theory to an existing viaduct considering the fatigue failure of the system based on the monitoring data and the cost-benefit of monitoring method. T2 - 13th International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering CY - Seoul, South Korea DA - 26.05.2019 KW - Fatigue safety KW - Value of information PY - 2019 SP - 275 EP - 288 CY - Seoul, South Korea AN - OPUS4-50809 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -