Announcements

Workshop 5 is prepared and hosted by Timo Schweckendiek from Deltares. It is the second of two workshops on system reliability: after a brief introduction to event trees, a case study (a safety assessment of pipeline failure in dikes) will be introduced, after which you will work in groups. Files for completing the exercise will be posted to the course website here at the beginning of class.

Workshop 4 has been posted to the course website here.

Also, there is no HW6: if you did not do HW5, you should do it this week.

The last two weeks of this unit will focus on system reliability. The reading listed for these two weeks is not that long. There are no practice problems for 8.6, but it is good to be aware of the bounding concept because it may be useful for you if in a situation when there are many elements, and to understand the role of dependence.

The contents of HW5 are simply: 1) review the MUDE book chapter System Reliability, and 2) do problem 8.1 (parts 1 and 2 only!) in the ADK book. That’s it!

In class on Friday we will take a real hydraulic system and schematize it using a simple graphical method for system reliability analysis: a fault tree.

Additional explanations have been added to the WS2 solution based on the in-class session Friday. This should make the interpretation of HW3 easier to understand, too.

HW4 is posted, and is relatively short. Sensitivity vectors are relatively straightforward to compute using the results of a FORM analysis and can give valuable insight into the reliability calculation.

Our question hour for prob design will be in 5.09 (Wed May 24, 15.00-16.30). It is optional, and will focus on questions from HW3 or the related reading material.

This is a reminder that you should finish HW 3 before class on Friday. To help you with this Benjamin (the TA) and will have a question hour on Wednesday from 15.00-16.30. I (Robert) will try to show up towards the end, but will also explain the assignment in class on Friday, before the workshop assignment. We are looking for a room for Wednesday, and will announce it when it is known. You can also send us questions about HW3 via email.

I know some of you are concerned with the amount of math in the Chapters 3.6 and 6: I don’t expect you to be able to recite it all from memory, or perhaps even understand 100% of it. I want you to understand what the transformation to the standard normal space is and see how the gradient-based optimization method FORM works. This will help you interpret results of reliability analyses. My suggestion is to go through the reading once, then try HW3 and refer back to the text to build your understanding. If there are remaining questions send them via email and we will work through them at the question hour on Wednesday and in-class session Friday.

HW 3 is on Component Reliability and has now been posted in the HOS book. Remember that there is no class next week due to the holiday and we will cover the material on this homework assignment with a workshop in Week 5 on Friday, May 26, so make sure you finish the homework in advance!

The solutions for HW1 and HW1 are posted in the HOS book. Remember that the first workshop on Friday of this week will be directly related to HW2 (EVA): the code you write will be used in class.

The solutions are posted before the Friday due date in order to give you time to review the EVA assignment for Friday.

We hope things are going smoothly with the reading and HW1 and HW2. Remember that there is no in-class session this week due to the holiday on Friday, but that you should finish both homework assignments before the first workshop on Friday of week 3. If you need to prioritize things, definitely focus on EVA (HW2), as that will be the main activity in the week 3 workshop.

Links to download the PDF slides for the 8 intro videos have been added to the HOS-PD-1.1, 1.2 and HOS-PD-2 (EVA) pages. The links for HW1 and HW2 in the calendar of this website have also been fixed.

The EVA videos have been added to the HOS book in Chapter HOS-PD-2.

If you have not already read it, make sure you look at the previous announcement “Getting Started”, which you can access using the links below or to the right.

Two videos have been added to the HOS book in Chapter HOS-PD-1. The first video gives a quick introduction to the unit, and the second video gives an introduction to the main topics that we will cover.

If you have not already read it, make sure you look at the previous announcement “Getting Started”, which you can access using the links below or to the right.

We decided to start this unit off with good news: the in-class session on Friday during Week 1 is cancelled! With the holiday on Thursday, we thought many of you might enjoy the chance to sleep in. It should disappear from your course calendar within a day or two.

However, there is still plenty of fun for you to have with this unit during Week 1: we have prepared a few short videos to introduce the material and a quick refresher of our first main topic, Extreme Value Analysis. There is also some reading and two homework assignments you can start, which are listed in the Calendar page under Week 1 (both assignments can be done over the first 3 weeks of Q4). Please read through the “Unit Information” page on this website to get an overview for how the unit will work, and what our expectations are. If you have any questions, please send Robert an email. Depending on how many questions come in, I may set up a FAQ page on the website.

To help you get through the material in Week 1, our teaching assistant Benjamin is available during the cancelled class time on Friday morning; if you would like to ask him a few questions, please contact him directly to let him know.

This unit is focused on providing you useful probabilistic tools for designing the structures and systems that are covered in the design units that are part of this B Module, which is why the course is set up with workshop-style sessions on Friday to apply and practice the material you are expected to read and study during the week. In total there are only 5 Friday sessions, due to the holidays in week 1 (sort of), 2 and 4.

That’s it for now—we are looking forward to seeing you in class…in Week 3!