J Water SRT - Aqua 55 (2006) 81-94
Failure risk management of buried infrastructure using fuzzy-based techniques
Yehuda Kleiner, Balvant Rajani and Rehan Sadiq
Senior Research Officer and Group Leader, Institute for Research in Construction, National Research Council Canada (NRC), 1200 Montreal Road, Building M-20, Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1A 0R6, Phone: 1-613-993-3805, Fax: 1-613-954-5984, Yehuda.Kleiner@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Principal Research Officer, Institute for Research in Construction, National Research Council Canada (NRC), 1200 Montreal Road, Building M-20, Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1A 0R6, Phone: 1-613-993-3810, Fax: 1-613-954-5984, Balvant.Rajani@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Research Officer, Institute for Research in Construction, National Research Council Canada (NRC), 1200 Montreal Road, Building M-20, Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1A 0R6, Phone: 1-613-993-6282, Fax: 1-613-954-5984, Rehan.Sadiq@nrc-cnrc.gc.ga
ABSTRACT
The effective management of failure risk of buried infrastructure assets requires knowledge of their current condition, their rate of deterioration, the expected consequences of their failure and the owner's (decision-maker) risk tolerance. Fuzzy-based techniques seem to be particularly suited to modeling the deterioration of buried infrastructure assets, for which data are scarce, cause-effect knowledge is imprecise and observations and criteria are often expressed in vague (linguistic) terms (e.g., ‘good’, ‘fair’ ‘poor’ condition, and so on). The use of fuzzy sets and fuzzy-based techniques helps to incorporate inherent imprecision, uncertainties and subjectivity of available data, as well as to propagate these attributes throughout the model, yielding more realistic results. This paper is the second of two companion papers that describe an entire method of managing risk of large buried infrastructure assets. The first companion paper describes the deterioration modeling of buried infrastructure assets, using a fuzzy rule-based, non-homogeneous Markov process. This paper describes how the fuzzy condition rating of the asset is translated into a possibility of failure. This possibility of failure is combined with the fuzzy failure consequences to obtain fuzzy risk of failure throughout the life of the pipe. This life-risk curve can be used to make effective decisions on pipe renewal. These decisions include when to schedule the next inspection and condition assessment or alternatively, when to renew a deteriorated pipe, and what renewal alternative should be selected.
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