This free webinar is part of Mecsol 2022's Webinar Series. Visit our website to see the list of all webinars.

Epistemic uncertainties and their role in optimal design of engineering systems

Prof. André T. Beck, University of São Paulo

It is nowadays well accepted that engineering systems need to be designed considering the inherent uncertainties in demands and capacities. Reliability-based, risk-based and robust optimization are three modern approaches to address the optimal design problem under objective uncertainties, that is: uncertainties which can be quantified using probability theory. Yet, subjective epistemic uncertainties, related to limitations of knowledge and to human errors, cannot be quantified probabilistically, but also need to be considered in design optimization. In this talk, we discuss the role of epistemic uncertainties, by exploring examples of optimal design of structural systems.

Chaired by Prof. Luiz Carlos Marcos Vieira Jr, University of Campinas