A continous Bayesian network for earth dams' risk assessment: Methodology and quantification

A continous Bayesian network for earth dams' risk assessment: Methodology and quantification

Morales-Napoles, O.
Delgado-Hernadez, D.J.
De-Leon-Escobedo, D.
Arteaga-Arcos, J.C.

2013

Dams’ safety is highly important for authorities around the world. The impacts of a dam failure can be enormous. Models for investigating dam safety are required for helping decision-makers to mitigate the possible adverse consequences of flooding. A model for earth dam safety must specify clearly possible contributing factors, failure modes and potential consequences of dam failure. Probabilistic relations between variables should also be specified. Bayesian networks (BNs) have been identified as tools that would assist dam engineers on assessing risks. BNs are graphical models that facilitate the construction of a joint probability distribution. Most of the time, the variables included in a model for earth dam risk assessment involve continuous quantities. The presence of continuous random variables makes the implementation of discrete BNs difficult. An alternative to discrete BNs is the use of non-parametric continuous BNs, which will be briefly described in this article. As an example, a model for earth dams’ safety in the State of Mexico will be discussed. Results regarding the quantification of conditional rank correlations through ratios of unconditional rank correlations have not been presented before and are introduced herein. While the complete application of the model for the State of Mexico is presented in an accompanying paper, here some results regarding model use are shown for demonstration purposes. The methods presented in this article can be applied for investigating risks of failure of civil infrastructures other than earth dams.

Building Engineering & Civil Engineering
SR - Structural Reliability
TS - Technical Sciences
Buildings and Infrastructure
Architecture
Built Environment
Bayesian networks
Dam safety
Correlation
Flood frquency
Experts
Assessment
Risk management

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:2fc074b8-dab9-4601-b09c-db2be348934b

469127

Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, 1-16

article