Cause-effect modelling of the risk analysis in objects development: An application to civil structures

Abstract

Cause-effect modelling, product-based analysis, and linguistic-based knowledge representation are concepts widely used in different engineering branches and offer ample ways for transdisciplinary engineering developments. An engineering solution consists of a tangible or intangible object able to satisfy specific requirements. The development of engineering projects faces many unknown, unpreventable, or uncontrollable phenomena. Risk analysis becomes an important item for project management. The identification of risks in the development of a solution is in general discretional, using particular models adapted to each specific project. On the contrary, we aim to a general and comprehensive risks analysis model, which is a non-common approach, based on products or results, for the identification of functionalities and defect causes of an object in a generic way. This article presents, in a product-based orientation, the definition of generic functionalities and generic causes categories of damage of an object. These main causes categories head the cause-effect model and constitute the set of adopted risk categories, which integrate the risk analysis model applicable to the development of tangible or intangible engineering solutions. The ex-post risks analysis of the collapse of a pre-stressed stayed bridge tower illustrates the use of the proposed risk analysis model.