Citation

Vaidogas E. Balt. J. Road Bridge Eng. 2007; 2(4): 155-163.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Publisher Technika)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of risk-based design of protective highway structures. It is stated that the accidents involving damage to components of road infrastructure are a natural subject of a quantitative risk analysis. The paper discusses how to apply a risk-oriented approach to the design of protective components of road infrastructure. A simulation-based procedure developed for a design of a protective highway structure by means of a multi-attribute selection is suggested. Attention is focused on uncertainties related to both accidental actions, which must be sustained by the protective structure and its behavior under these actions. The proposed procedure acts as a comparison of alternative designs of the protective structure. The comparison considers epistemic uncertainties in failure-to-protect probabilities related to alternative designs. It is shown that the multi-attribute selection can be conducted as a simulation-based propagation of the epistemic uncertainties. A loop of such simulation must involve deterministic algorithms of the multi-attribute selection. Repeating this loop a number of times yields relative frequencies of selecting various alternate designs as the best ones. Optimal alternative designs can be chosen by the largest frequency of selection.