Ingenuity And Intelligent Risk Assessment For Resilient Geotechnics

Geotechnical engineering is a risky business and there is much that can, and does, go wrong. It is often said that the single most common cause of failure in construction (including delays and additional costs) is in the ground. This would indicate that the logical path to design more resilient infrastructure would be the adoption of over-conservative designs. However, the in-ground structures that collapse often have a number of fundamental and basic design flaws. In reality, most in-ground structures move considerably less than predicted at design stage, suggesting that they were, in fact, over-designed. Over-design can also be considered a form of failure as it can add cost and delays in construction. It is generally accepted that a resilient piece of infrastructure is not necessarily one that does not fail upon a catastrophic event, i.e. one that is overdesigned to withstand such event. Otherwise the concepts of sustainability and resiliency would be conflicting. A resilient design is one that does not cause significant disruption to the community and can function effectively as quickly as possible after the catastrophic event.

So, how can geotechnical engineers achieve resilient infrastructure designs? The best approach seems to be associated with intelligent risk assessment that is based on an in-depth understanding of how such a design will perform before, during and after a catastrophic event. This approach requires good knowledge of the fundamental principles of geotechnical engineering such as solid mechanics, geology, failure mechanisms and so on. This paper will discuss some of the requirements for intelligent risk assessment and presents a practical example of an approach that could be adopted for the design of resilient infrastructures. Its primary focus is on the anticipated performance during a potential failure and the intelligent risk assessment forming the basis of the entire design.