Decision support tool on investments in life safety based on sampling theory |
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Authors: | Ruben Van Coile Robby Caspeele Luc Taerwe |
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Affiliation: | Department of Structural Engineering, Ghent University, Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 904, Zwijnaarde, Ghent 9052, Belgium |
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Abstract: | For decisions related to investments in societal safety and health, it is often difficult to balance the discretionary competence of decision-makers with theoretical optimum levels of investment. While removing day-to-day decisions about risk from the political arena would arguably result in better decisions, a full depoliticisation is not desirable since public and private risk preferences cannot simply be neglected without negatively affecting the perception of risk and inducing a democratic deficit. Therefore, a decision-making tool has been developed which allows for narrowing the scope of possible decisions for the decision-maker, based on predetermined maximum acceptable deviations from the theoretic optimum investment level. These maximum acceptable deviations should be established upfront on a general basis and may subsequently be applied on a case-by-case basis. In this paper, the basic calculation concepts are explained and a detailed example study is presented in which limits for the target safety level of concrete slabs are determined under some specific considerations. |
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Keywords: | Decision-making Life safety Cost optimisation Structural reliability Reinforced concrete Fire |
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