With the expansion of new technologies, materials, and the design of complex systems, the expectations of society upon engineers are becoming larger than ever. Engineers make critical decisions with potentially high adverse consequences. The current political, societal, and financial climate requires engineers to formally consider the factors of uncertainty (e.g., floods, earthquakes, winds, environmental risks) in their decisions at all levels. Uncertainty Modeling and Analysis in Civil Engineering provides a thorough report on the immediate state of uncertainty modeling and analytical methods for civil engineering systems, presenting a toolbox for solving problems in real-world situations. Topics include Neural networks Genetic algorithms Numerical modeling Fuzzy sets and operations Reliability and risk analysis Systems control Uncertainty in probability estimates This compendium is a considerable reference for civil engineers as well as for engineers in other disciplines, computer scientists, general scientists, and students.

Uncertainty has been of concern to engineers, managers and . scientists for many centuries. In management sciences there have existed definitions of uncertainty in a rather narrow sense since the beginning of this century. In engineering and uncertainty has for a long time been considered as in sciences, however, synonymous with random, stochastic, statistic, or probabilistic. Only since the early sixties views on uncertainty have ~ecome more heterogeneous and more tools to model uncertainty than statistics have been proposed by several scientists. The problem of modeling uncertainty adequately has become more important the more complex systems have become, the faster the scientific and engineering world develops, and the more important, but also more difficult, forecasting of future states of systems have become. The first question one should probably ask is whether uncertainty is a phenomenon, a feature of real world systems, a state of mind or a label for a situation in which a human being wants to make statements about phenomena, i. e. , reality, models, and theories, respectively. One cart also ask whether uncertainty is an objective fact or just a subjective impression which is closely related to individual persons. Whether uncertainty is an objective feature of physical real systems seems to be a philosophical question. This shall not be answered in this volume.

"This book provides the reader with basic concepts for soft computing and other methods for various means of uncertainty in handling solutions, analysis, and applications"--Provided by publisher.

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.

This book gives an overview of the current state of uncertainty modeling in vibration, control, and fuzzy analysis of structural and mechanical systems. It is a coherent compendium written by leading experts and offers the reader a sampling of exciting research areas in several fast-growing branches in this field. Uncertainty modeling and analysis are becoming an integral part of system definition and modeling in many fields. The book consists of ten chapters that report the work of researchers, scientists and engineers on theoretical developments and diversified applications in engineering systems. They deal with modeling for vibration, control, and fuzzy analysis of structural and mechanical systems under uncertain conditions. The book designed for readers who are familiar with the fundamentals and wish to study a particular topic or use the book as an authoritative reference. It gives readers a sophisticated toolbox for tackling modeling problems in mechanical and structural systems in real-world situations. The book is part of a series on Stability, Vibration and Control of Structures, and provides vital information in these areas.

As computer-assisted modeling and analysis of physical processes have continued to grow and diversify, sensitivity and uncertainty analyses have become indispensable investigative scientific tools in their own right. While most techniques used for these analyses are well documented, there has yet to appear a systematic treatment of the method based

Failure of hydrosystems, such as dams, levees, storm sewers, or pollution control systems, pose threats to the public safety and health as well as potentially inflict enormous damages on properties and environments. Many failures of hydrosystems are mainly attributed by the existence of various uncertainties, including inherent natural randomness and the lack of complete understanding of involved geophysical processes. It is therefore essential to systematically quantify the degree of uncertainty for the problem in hand so that reliability assessment and risk-based design of hydrosystems can be made. The conventional approach of frequency analysis of heavy rainfalls or large floods consider only portion of the uncertainties involved in hydrosystem engineering problems. Over the past two decades or so, there has been a steady growth on the development and application of uncertainty analysis techniques in hydrosystems engineering and other disciplines. The aim of this book is to bring together these uncertainty analysis techniques in one book and to demonstrate their applications and limitations for a wide variety of hydrosystem engineering problems.