SIMULATION SYSTEM FOR MANAGING UNCERTAINTY IN THE SUSTAINABLE DESIGN OF CONCRETE STRUCTURES

Abstract

This paper presents a simulation system for managing uncertainty in the sustainable design of concrete structures. This system was conceived and developed for professional use and grounded on a probabilistic method that combines requirement trees, value functions, the Analytic Hierarchy Process, and the Monte Carlo simulation technique. It embraces the approach to assessing sustainability taken by the Spanish Structural Concrete Code (EHE, in Spanish), but can be applied in other code frameworks. Obviously, there is uncertainty about the final sustainability index when this parameter is estimated before the structure has been finished. Managing the sustainability objective will be hindered. It is therefore helpful to assess how likely it is to achieve the sustainability objective throughout the project life cycle. The system presented here takes into account the uncertainty of the different sustainability parameters. It makes it possible to estimate the probability distribution for the potential final index. This in turn will facilitate managing uncertainty in the sustainable design of concrete structures, increasing the likelihood of achieving the sustainability objective.