39th ESReDA Seminar on

Challenges in Structural Safety and Risk Analysis
(October 19^th - 21^st, 2010) EDP, Coimbra, Portugal

In any industrial field, the safety of structures is a challenging topic involving physical, mechanical and durability analyses, as well as economic and political considerations. Since no human activity can induce zero risk, and no equipment has a zero rate of failure. Hence, there is a real need to compromise the risk against the benefits of the activities and the costs of further risk reduction. The challenge is therefore to determine the optimal compromise between conflicting requirements. In a wider point of view, the Structural Safety Assessment should be integrated in the System Reliability Assessment by taking account of the non mechanical parameters related to design and operation. This target is aimed by the ESReDA project-groups that have worked and are working on this issue, such as the current project group SRA into SRA.

Although significant progress has been achieved in Structural Reliability Assessment (SRA), the application to real scale engineering systems is still difficult for different reasons, such as: the data availability, the component complexity and interactions, the lack of methods in reliability and the decision-making process. These difficulties do not allow for direct application of SRA in industrial risk management. These barriers present serious challenges for engineers, researchers and decision makers in the coming years.

The aim of the 39^th ESReDA seminar is to bring together scientists, engineers and decision makers in the field of structural safety and risk management, in order to present and discuss innovative methodologies and practical applications in structural reliability: assessment, testing, analysis, design and optimization. Methodologies, theoretical issues and practical case studies are expected to cover range from academic to industrial applications, including electronics, civil and mechanical engineering.