Risk management, design principles, and life-cycle assessment

Serviceability and structural safety need to be considered in the design of all structures. To achieve a sufficient safety and serviceability, the design must apply a sufficiently large safety margin between the expected load and resistance. Modern guidelines for structural safety are based on probabilistic principles, according to which the probability of structural failure shall be sufficiently small. By improving such design guidelines, it is possible to reduce the amount of construction material by avoiding unnecessary over design. We have several decades of research experience on this matter and we aim to improve the current design standards for geotechnical engineering. An increasingly important research question for us concerns how geotechnical engineering structures shall be designed with respect to its cost and environmental impact over its full life-cycle. There are also other risks than structural safety, such as how unexpected geotechnical conditions can affect the budget and time plan. Improving the current risk management tools is also one of our research missions.

Representatives: Johan Spross , Fredrik Johansson , Marie Westberg Wilde , Stefan Larsson