The IUTAM Symposium on Advances in Nonlinear Stochastic Mechanics, held in Trondheim July 3-7, 1995, was the eighth of a series of IUTAM sponsored symposia which focus on the application of stochastic methods in mechanics. The previous meetings took place in Coventry, UK (1972), Sout'hampton, UK (1976), FrankfurtjOder, Germany (1982), Stockholm, Sweden (1984), Innsbruckjlgls, Austria (1987), Turin, Italy (1991) and San Antonio, Texas (1993). The symposium provided an extraordinary opportunity for scholars to meet and discuss recent advances in stochastic mechanics. The participants represented a wide range of expertise, from pure theoreticians to people primarily oriented toward applications. A significant achievement of the symposium was the very extensive discussions taking place over the whole range from highly theoretical questions to practical engineering applications. Several presentations also clearly demonstrated the substantial progress that has been achieved in recent years in terms of developing and implement ing stochastic analysis techniques for mechanical engineering systems. This aspect was further underpinned by specially invited extended lectures on computational stochastic mechanics, engineering applications of stochastic mechanics, and nonlinear active control. The symposium also reflected the very active and high-quality research taking place in the field of stochastic stability. Ten presentations were given on this topic ofa total of47 papers. A main conclusion that can be drawn from the proceedings of this symposium is that stochastic mechanics as a subject has reached great depth and width in both methodology and applicability.

Authored by the most active scholars in their respective areas, this volume covers the most recent developments, both theoretical and applicative, in multi-disciplinary reliability evaluation areas, many of which are cutting-edge and not discussed elsewhere in book form.The broad coverage includes the latest thoughts on design for low probability and high consequence events like the failure of the World Trade Center as well as risk acceptability based on the Life Quality Index. Other chapters discuss the development of the performance-based design concept, and the generally overlooked area of the reliability evaluation of bridges and offshore structures. Since the finite element method is routinely used for structural analyses, emphasis is put on discussing reliability evaluation using finite elements including consideration of the mesh-free finite element method. Corrosion and fatigue reliability evaluation techniques are other urgent issues that are dealt with in depth. Risk-based optimization using lifecycle cost analysis is presented. Among the many additional included topics, a chapter is devoted to health assessment of existing structures, currently one of the most active research areas.

The functionality of modern structural, mechanical and electrical or electronic systems depends on their ability to perform under uncertain conditions. Consideration of uncertainties and their effect on system behavior is an essential and integral part of defining systems. In eleven chapters, leading experts present an overview of the current state of uncertainty modeling, analysis and design of large systems in four major areas: finite and boundary element methods (common structural analysis techniques), fatigue, stability analysis, and fault-tolerant systems. The content of this book is unique; it describes exciting research developments and challenges in emerging areas, and provide a sophisticated toolbox for tackling uncertainty modeling in real systems.

Collection of technical papers presented at the 5th International Conference on Stochastic Structural Dynamics (SSD03) in Hangzhou, China during May 26-28, 2003. Topics include direct transfer substructure method for random response analysis, generation of bounded stochastic processes, and sample path behavior of Gaussian processes.

Composed of the proceedings of a symposium on engineering geology and the environment, held in Athens in June, 1997, this work provides a survey of trends in engineering geology, and an interdisciplinary collaboration with hydrogeology, geochemistry, geomorphology, and soil and rock mechanics.

Nonlinearity and stochastic structural dynamics is of common interest to engineers and applied scientists belonging to many disciplines. Recent research in this area has been concentrated on the response and stability of nonlinear mechanical and structural systems subjected to random escitation. Simultaneously the focus of research has also been directed towards understanding intrinsic nonlinear phenomena like bifurcation and chaos in deterministic systems. These problems demand a high degree of sophistication in the analytical and numerical approaches. At the same time they arise from considerations of nonlinear system response to turbulence, earthquacke, wind, wave and guidancy excitations. The topic thus attracts votaries of both analytical rigour and practical applications. This books gives important and latest developments in the field presenting in a coherent fashion the research findings of leading international groups working in the area of nonlinear random vibration and chaos.