9. Conclusion

We know that risk analysis requires the evaluation of two quantities: the probability of occurrence, and the magnitude of the consequences, which are generally unpleasant.

Structural reliability conforms to this scheme. From a deterministic physical failure equation (the deterministic component), we determine the probability of that failure (the probabilistic component). This methodology is also applied to other physical phenomena.

We have seen that these deterministic and probabilistic results are highly dependent:

• of the degradation mechanism, and consequently of the degradation criteria;

• input data and their uncertainty.

Any effort to improve input data can only be beneficial, in order to reduce uncertainties. Once again,...