MS23 - Uncertain Fields and Processes in Structural Mechanics

Keywords: structural safety; risk assessment; randomness; intervals; fuzziness; polymorphic uncertainty; spatial and time dependencies; numerical simulation

Organizers:
Marc Fina (1) – marc.fina@kit.edu
F. Niklas Schietzold (2) – niklas.schietzold@tu-dresden.de

Affiliations:
(1) Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Structural Analysis, Germany
(2) Technische Universität Dresden, Institute for Structural Analysis, Germany

Abstract:
This minisymposium addresses the challenge of uncertainty quantification in structural mechanics, focusing on the modeling of spatial and time dependencies. In general, data and information are characterized by various types of uncertainty, e.g., natural variability, lack of knowledge, and imprecision. Some structural parameters vary in space or time, e. g., material and geometrical properties, external loads, and boundary/environmental conditions. For a realistic risk and structural safety assessment, the uncertainty of these parameters has to be quantified by uncertain fields and processes, which are characterized by their dependency model – such as a correlation structure in case of random fields.
A combination of different uncertainty models leads to polymorphic/hybrid/mixed uncertain fields and processes, which allows to quantify aleatory (natural variability) and epistemic (lack of knowledge, imprecision) uncertainty. The uncertainty quantification based on measurements and the definition of realistic dependency concepts are quite challenging, e.g., non-homogeneous fields, non-stationary processes, cross-correlations, high-dimensionality (computational effort), discretization, among others. Therefore, contributions are encouraged from academia and industry, which address both theoretical developments and practical applications of uncertain fields and processes in structural mechanics.

In summary, the minisymposium covers the following topics, but is not limited to:

  • uncertainty quantification of spatial and time dependencies by random, interval, fuzzy and polymorphic/hybrid/mixed uncertain fields and processes,
  • advanced simulation techniques and surrogate modeling strategies,
  • discretization techniques,
  • sensitivity analyses,
  • structural design optimization,
  • applications in material modeling, stability analysis, structural dynamics, multi-scale and multi-physics analysis, fluid dynamics, among many others.