In This Issue

Chairman’s Note

Protective Systems

SoTeRiA Fire

The intersection of PRA andPHM

IMECE 2021 Track 14

Journal & Conference News

Editorial Column

Highlights

Research News; Second ina series of articles on risk as-sessment and a new fire PRAtool SoTeRiA Fire

Research News; Second ina series of articles on risk as-sessment and a new fire PRAtool SoTeRiA Fire; A work-shop is planned for investi-gators looking into PRA andPHM and how they are re-lated

Call for PapersSubmit your new researchand findings to Part A andPart B journal sections

Editorial PageThe law of large numbersand risk.

Chair’s Message

Hello SER2AD Members,

Wow . . . what a year; promising news about the Covid-19 vaccine and concernsabout the new virus strains. Our division has been working hard to engageand move forward with all proven virtual capabilities and the challenges aboutthe online events, cancelations and postponements. For a brief update oncurrent and future plans . . .

1. ASME IMECE 2020 conference was held virtual on the same planneddates. There were some benefits as well as challenges holding such bigconference online. Dr. Andrey Morozov will be the chair for safety, riskand reliability track for ASME IMECE 2021conference.

2. ASME-SERAD and UMD-CRR workshop on Probabilistic Risk Assessment(PRA) approaches for Complex Engineering Systems (PACES) was heldonline to generate some discussion and relationships about goal ofconnecting the concepts of PRA and Prognostics and Health Management(PHM) on October 2nd. A summary of the workshop is provided byDr. Katrina Groth in her article The intersection of PRA and PHM.

3. The division award reception dinner was also held online on November18 during ASME IMECE 2020 conference. The awards and recognitionsare announced for student winners in both graduate and undergraduatelevel for safety innovation challenge contest, and the winners for bestpapers of ASME-ASCE journal of risk and uncertainty in engineeringsystems both parts A and B in civil and mechanical systems. The recep-tion also recognized the efforts of the past chair of SERAD, Dr. JeremyGernard and the organizer of safety, risk and reliability track for ASMEIMECE2020 conference, Dr. Mihai Diaconeasa.

4. Special issue is planned about Risk, Resilience and Reliability for Au-tonomous Vehicle Technologies: Trend, Techniques and Challenges forASME journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems. Weencourage the research colleagues to consider this special issue forpublication of their research results.

5. The Technical Committee on Risk Technology was established pursuantto the authority and organization of the ASME Safety Engineering andRisk Analysis Division (SERAD). The purpose of the Committee is toprovide a center of attention for research and development, commu-nication, dialogue and other cooperative activities among individualsand organizations concerned with the development, application, andimplementation of risk-based and risk related technology. Dr. BilalAyyub, Dr. LaCharles Keesee, and Dr. Jeremy Gernand are appointed asthe Chairperson and two Vice-Chairpersons of the committee for threeyears.

While 2020 has generally been a miserable year by most standards, I’ll closewith wishing you a safe and happy holiday. If you have an idea or wouldlike to discuss opportunities in the division, please send an email to: pourgol-mohamadm2@asme.org.

Mohammad Pourgol-Mohammad, Ph.D, PEASME SER2AD Chair, 2020-2021

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Research News

Protective SystemsErnie Kee, Martin Wortman, and Pranav Kannan

The Organization for Public Awareness of Hazardous Technology Risks

1 Introduction

This second article in a planned series of four on “Protection, Regulation, and Risk Assessment” provides details aboutwhat we believe should be the role of protective systems, how they are developed, and how expectations for theirefficacy against harms can be evaluated.1 In the next article in the series, we plan to review the engineering principlesof reliability engineering and their role in assessing efficacy of protection. In the fourth and last article we planto discuss regulation of protective systems and, depending on the choice of method, how different risk assessmentmethods can influence regulatory oversight and rules; we plan to detail our understanding of the results and possiblepitfalls that we believe should be identified and presented in any assessment of risk, particularly in risk quantification.

1.1 Background

It is well understood that facilities such as nuclear power plants, petroleum refineries, drilling rigs, etc. are of greatbenefit to society. Yet, all hazardous production operations face routine operational disruptions. These disruptionstypically have minor consequences leading only to small economic losses before returning to a normal state. However,there exists a possibility that certain disrupting events can, if not appropriately redressed, exceed into expensivecatastrophes with large costs born by the public as well as the enterprise operating the facility. In order to manage thelikelihood of catastrophe, protective systems are designed, deployed and operated. These systems typically overlayhazardous production and transportation operations and function to detect disrupting events and then activate controlsthat will return operations to a safe state. Importantly, protective systems do not function to enhance enterpriserevenues or societal benefit derived from hazardous technologies; rather, they serve to curb costs arising from possiblelost production, liability claims and collateral harm. Importantly, collateral harm occurs only when either a protectivesystem fails or has not been included.

1.2 Protective system setting

A significant effort expended by humankind over the millennia has been to overcome, or at least escape from, thevarious harms nature devises by creating technological production systems at various levels of complexity. Winter coldrequires shelter and energy, animals and insects attack crops, drought and unseasonal rain destroy crops, movinggoods across mountains, valleys and rivers requires transportation infrastructures, medical devices and medicinesare developed to fight disease and heal broken limbs. Technological systems may also bring with them harmsthat, although intended to be less frequent, less injurious, and less deadly than those they are meant to overcome,nevertheless can themselves cause harm. Technological systems that would, over their useful lifetime, result in harmsless than a level acceptable to those exposed to them is the subject of safety management; a subject supported with avast literature.2

Consider Figure 1. A narrow view of a technological production system is shown in Figure 1a; that is, a systemthat takes inputs, operates on them, and produces outputs as a “black box.” Our view of technological systems ismore complex than a black box; we see technological systems, regardless of their perceived simplicity, as made upof inter-dependent subsystems, and even subsystems within subsystems as shown in Figure 1b. Where required,another type of technological system, a protective system, is added to the production system as an “overlay”; it acts anattenuator that would terminate scenarios before harm is caused as shown conceptually in Figure 2. We will focus ourattention on the protective system, itself a technological system, and in what follows, explain why we see it as separatefrom the technological production system it overlays. In general perspective, a protective system is engineered to reactto triggers, or upsets to normal production; as shown in the figure, triggers come from within the production systemas well as from outside it.

1The articles are planned to appear in successive issues of the ASME SERAD quarterly newsletter; the first appears in the 3rd quarter 2020 issue.2A GOOGLE search for "safety" AND "management" produced 57,500 results on 08 November, 2020.

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(a) An integrated view of a technological system wherebythe collection of subsystems are hidden and it seen as takinginputs and producing outputs.

(b) A technological system seen as a collection of subsys-tems that work together to produce inputs and outputs.

Figure 1. Two views of a technological system.

The scope of protective systems in our view is comprehensive, consisting of

1. all sensoring technology used to detect upset operations,2. all equipment and personnel responsible for responding to detection of operational anomalies,3. all emergency response equipment and personnel (both public and private) responsible for responding to

emergencies, and4. all management infrastructure (both public and private) governing elements of protective system design,

deployment, operation, and regulation.3

1.3 Regulated elements of protective systems

In the United States, hazardous production operations are regulated so that legislation, established to prevent harmto its citizens exposed to such hazards, is enacted and enforced. Regulation provides for ex ante protections in theform of safety rules that are enforceable as law, with which hazardous operations must comply in order to legallyconduct business. These rules are limited to design and operation of certain elements of protective systems thatoverlay any given hazardous production system. An immediate consequence of regulatory oversight is the compliantbusinesses will incur costs for safety-critical protections that they otherwise would prefer not to pay. This is not tosay that businesses operating hazardous technologies would choose to eschew all safety-critical protections; certainlevels of safety-critical protections enhance the value of investment in hazardous production operations. However, it isimportant to recognize that profit seeking business investors are not the only economic stakeholders in hazardousproduction operations. Stakeholders include consumers who benefit from access to products (at appropriate pricepoints) produced by hazardous operations, and ‘near neighbors’ with no access to significant profits or consumption,face great collateral harm should certain types of industrial accidents occur. Industrial accidents typically induce anegative economic externality ... a failure of the free market where production or consumption impose cost on athird party outside the mutual agreement of buyers and sellers. Such eventualities are in part addressed throughgovernment interventions that require prior protections imposed via safety regulations.

Figure 2. A technological production system that includes a protective system, shown as an overlay on the production system.Most triggers that could result in harmful outcomes are attenuated by the protective system.

One might question the need for regulation if involuntary stakeholders understood and accepted the risk of possibleharm.4 But, involuntary stakeholders rarely if ever hold the same information as investors who are informed by

3This protective system scope was first presented at the ANS conference PSA 2017, Pittsburgh, PA 2017.4The famous Coase Theorem addresses the relationship between regulation and property rights with respect to economic externalities.

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engineers, scientists, and lawyers whom they employ. Further, involuntary stakeholders are typically more averseto risk of economic loss due to industrial accidents as they have ‘more skin in the game.’ The mismatch betweeninformation and risk appetites motivates government regulatory oversight of hazardous operations. Thus, regulatorsserve as a proxy for involuntary stakeholders in understanding and assessing safety, they set safety requirements thatthey judge to be in the best societal interest.

Definition 1 A safety–critical protective system is a collection of physical and human resources engineered andmanaged to mitigate the consequences of anomalies arising in the operation of hazardous technologies.

Here, the adjective hazardous indicates that a technology is capable of causing significant collateral harm to peopleand/or the environment. The adjective safety–critical is applied to a protective system that overlays a hazardoustechnology. Therefore, safety–critical protective systems function to safeguard people and property located ‘outside ofthe security fence’ surrounding a hazardous technology. Safety–critical protective systems serve as filters designed torecognize the initiation of disrupting events and mitigate the potentially catastrophic consequences. We are concernedwith understanding the efficacy of protection these systems provide.

2 Adequate Protection and Protective System Design

“If I ordered a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly, or write a tragedy, or to change intosea bird, and if the general did not perform received order, who would be in the wrong, him or me?”

“That would be you,” the little prince said firmly.

“Exact. We have to ask from everyone what everyone can give,” resumed the king. “Authority is based on reason.If you order your people to throw themselves into the sea, they will make the revolution. I have the right torequire obedience because my orders are reasonable.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943).5

A notional understanding of protection is given by the classical Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA) diagram ofFigure 3. Regulatory oversight of protective layers is limited. Layers corresponding to Community Response, BasicControls, and Process Design are typically not within the purview of regulatory oversight. That is, regulators ofhazardous production systems typically do not address the design and operation of public emergency infrastructure,nor do they oversee production process design or its basic controls. The anticipated consequence of regulatory

Figure 3. Classical LOPA diagram.

oversight of hazardous production systems is that compliant safety–critical protections will be designed, deployed, andoperated by owners of the production system. That is, hazardous technology owners are responsible for the cost of theprotections that regulators deem are necessary to ensure that the public enjoys adequate protection from collateralharm.

But, what is judged to be adequate is in the eye of the beholder. Clearly, what is deemed adequate by a distantshareholder in an electric utility operating a nuclear power generating facility can differ sharply with the opinion ofsomeone living in near proximity to an aging nuclear reactor. Ultimately, regulators decide which protective systemdesigns are adequate when they craft the rules that constrain compliant system designs. Inasmuch as regulators mustbalance the interests of society as a whole, it is worthwhile noting the divergent interests of hazardous technologystakeholders. For this purpose we consider the economic perspectives of profit–seeking investors, beneficiaries whoconsume market–competitive products, and involuntary stakeholders who are not entitled to production profits but

5English translation from Classica Libris. Kindle Edition

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would suffer significant collateral harm should there be an industrial accident.

Protective systems cost money, and it is reasonable to assume that the efficacy of protection monotonically increaseswith cost. But, efficacy is bounded above. Hence, there is a diminishing marginal efficacy–return on the cost ofadditional protections. The cost of protections affects stakeholders differently. It is easily reasoned that:

1. Investors profits are diminished by regulated protections. Regulated protections must be capitalized with moniesthat might otherwise be devoted to production. Such a commitment of capital generally increases costs whileforgoing potential revenues and, thus, monotonically decreasing profits.

2. Product consumers will face monotonic increases in market prices when the cost of regulated protections rise.Increasing prices act to effectively reduce beneficiaries’ access to products.

3. Involuntary stakeholders, however, enjoy decreasing expected losses due to industrial accidents, as protectioncosts (for which they are not responsible) rise. That is, their satisfaction increases monotonically with increasinginvestment in protections.

Figure 4. A notional view of the relationships among the expected utility vs cost of regulatory protections as perceived by investors,involuntary stakeholders, and production beneficiaries.

Plotting the trajectory of satisfaction (as utility) for increasing regulated protection cost for an arbitrary stakeholderfrom each of the three groups we see, in Figure 4, the monotone behaviors described above. Regulators, of course,appreciate the competing interests revealed in Figure 4 and must craft rules that constrain the design space ofsafety–critical protections ... constraints that largely benefit risk averse involuntary stakeholders while penalizing riskneutral investors and (nearly risk neutral) benficiaries.

Importantly, regulators typically do not design the elements of protective systems that they oversee. Rather, regulatorsestablish rules that constrain feasible designs that are to be synthesized outside of the regulating agency. Becauseregulatory authority is limited to rule making and enforcement; enterprises operating hazardous technological systemsare free to seek profit maximizing designs within the space constrained by regulatory rules.

Statutes dictate that regulators are nearly always prohibited from establishing rules that rely on monetary metrics.6

Thus, “adequate protection” will be defined by rules that do not directly consider costs of protection and/or accidentcosts.

2.1 Design as Decisions

The design of protective systems, like all engineering design, is an exercise in decision making. Regulators seekingadequate protection will, in principle, rank order various collections of regulatory rules and then identify that collectionwhich is most preferred in meeting the objective of adequate protection. Protective system designers/operators, inturn, will rank order alternative compliant system designs and then execute the most preferred design ... typically soas to maximize expected investor profits. Of course, regulators and protective system designers/operators interactivelyexchange information and analyses almost without interruption. This open discourse, while sometimes criticizedas a mechanism for regulatory capture, serves to ensure that regulators and designer/operators hold symmetricinformation with respect to engineering adequate protection.

6Hansson’s 2004 article, “Philosophical Perspectives on Risk” published online in Techné 8:1 10–35 implies this as a moral imperative in his ruleRule (5) “Nobody should be exposed to a risk unless it is part of an equitable social system for risk-taking that works to her advantage” in his .

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Importantly, adequate protection is the consequence of a hierarchical decision making process: regulators identify amost preferred alternative, to which a regulated enterprise responds with a most preferred protective system design.There is no single composite metric quantifying adequate protection which might serve as a threshold for regulatorycompliance. Adequate protection is simply defined as compliance with a specific collection of regulatory rules.

2.2 Prescriptive vs Risk–Informed Rules

Regulatory rules can be quite complicated, giving detailed engineering specifications on protective system elements. Itis useful to coarsely decompose engineering specific regulatory rules into two basic categories: prescriptive rules andrisk–informed rules. Prescriptive rules (sometimes called deterministic rules) generally describe protection design oroperational constraints in terms of system physics. Risk-informed rules describe protections in terms of one’s ‘certainty’about system physics. This is to say, risk–informed rules describe uncertainty whereas prescriptive rules do not.

Historically, regulatory rules were only prescriptive in nature. As such, regulated protective system designs wereconservative, being directed principally by elements of material science, reliability physics, combinational logic,etc. More recently, regulatory language has included characterizations of uncertainty, often in the terminology ofprobability and statistics. Here, regulatory rules are informed by elements of risk analyses that appeal to directly orindirectly to Uncertainty Quantification (UQ). There are important philosophical differences between conservativeprescriptive rules and the less risk averse ‘rules that are designated as risk–informed.’ In particular, risk–informedrules implicitly rely on the mathematical assumptions underlying stochastic processes applied in risk analysis. Theseassumptions can be esoteric and easily misinterpreted when applied in the context of safety–critical protections.Nonetheless, risk–informed regulatory rules are becoming more widely deployed, allowing protective system designspace greater latitude to accept a ‘risk of adverse outcomes.’ The operational success of risk–informed regulatory ruleswill surely play out according to the validity of their incumbent risk analyses.

3 Summary Observations

In summary, we observe that protective systems overlay hazardous production technologies to throttle possible harmthat might arise from operational anomalies. Elements of protective systems are regulated to ensure ex ante protectionfrom collateral harm for involuntary stakeholders for example, near neighbors of a hazardous technology. Regulationsare focused specifically on the effectiveness of protections ... not the production process itself. That is, regulatorsestablish rules that constrain the design of protectives systems. Thus, compliance with regulatory rules defines“adequate protection.”

Adequate protection explicitly serves the economic interests of involuntary stakeholders by providing them priorprotections from collateral harm. Importantly, regulators are required to eschew all economic figures of merit inestablishing the regulatory rules that constrain protective system design. Regulators are specifically tasked withestablishing rules, where compliance defines adequate protections for the public; compliant protective systems bydefinition provide adequate protection. Regulators, therefore, are not arbiters of the “public good”; the public good ofsafety-critical protective systems is not determined within the auspices of regulatory agencies. Public good is onlywithin the auspices of our political system. Legislators are responsible for representing the public good by creatinglaws that regulatory agencies are then given the executive authority to implement and enforce.

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Probabilistic Risk Assessment @ University of Illinois : SoTeRiA FireZahra Mohaghegh

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA) Research Laboratory, directed by Associate Professor Zahra Mohaghegh,in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,is a multidisciplinary research laboratory that has a proven track record of developing scientific and innovativeapproaches for risk assessment, risk management, and risk-informed decision-making and regulation. SoTeRiA’sresearch focuses on maintaining or improving a high level of safety in technological systems such as commercialnuclear power plants, while reducing the cost of operations. This scientific work helps create a pathway that wouldenhance the economic viability of the nuclear industry at a time when carbon-free energy resources play a critical rolein mitigating climate change.

SoTeRiA advances the science of PRA and its applications for complex technological systems, making scholarly contribu-tions in three areas: Area (I) spatiotemporal coupling of physical failure mechanisms with human/social performanceand the incorporation of this coupling into PRA using a static-dynamic Integrated PRA (I-PRA) methodology; Area (II)incorporating big data analytics into PRA, and Area (III) integrating safety risk and financial risk. These three areasare operationalized in various research projects funded by national and international funding agencies and have beenreported in more than sixty SoTeRiA publications (https://soteria.npre.illinois.edu/publications/), earning a largenumber of citations. With the desire to create an international think-tank for safety, SoTeRiA has conducted researchcollaborations, for example, with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to develop risk methodologies foradvanced reactors and with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) to advance simulation models for risk-informedemergency preparedness and response. SoTeRiA’s research studies have also received funding from several nationalsponsors, for example, from the Department of Energy (DOE) for advancing the I-PRA algorithm for the deploymentof new technologies, DOE for Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), National Science Foundation (NSF) for big dataanalytics in PRA, and from the nuclear industry for the risk-informed resolution of Generic Safety Issue 191 (GSI-191)and for fire PRA.

Fire safety is as important, if not more so, in commercial nuclear power plants as it is in other energy and domesticapplications. Fire safety of nuclear power plants is ensured by fire protection designs and regulations. To improvethe assessment and management of plant fire risk, members of the SoTeRiA Research Laboratory including Ph.D.students Sari Alkhatib and Ha Bui, Research Assistant Professor Tatsuya Sakurahara, Research Scientist Seyed Reihani,Research Associate Ernie Kee, and Associate Professor Zahra Mohaghegh, in collaboration with nuclear industrypartners and the Illinois Fire Service Institute, are conducting research on fire PRA methodologies and their full-scaleapplication for a nuclear power plant. In this project, a computational platform, “SoTeRiA Fire,” has been developedthat will significantly reduce the burden on the plant operator to estimate the level of fire risk at various locationswithin a nuclear power plant locations. The developed code leverages fire simulation software approved by theNuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to assess fire progression and spread in single- and multi-compartment firescenarios. The SoTeRiA fire code provides multiple options for initial and boundary conditions, representing differentlevels of realism and data requirements. Using this “risk-informed” technology, the commercial nuclear power plantoperators can most efficiently apply resources to minimize the fire-related risk while reducing costs of operation andmaintenance. Further information on fire PRA research can be found on the SoTeRiA Research Laboratory website(https://soteria.npre.illinois.edu/research/fire/).

SoTeRiA laboratory continues to promote PRA research and education because next-generation leaders must beginto think differently, using risk-informed solutions to initiate safe, resilient, sustainable, and socially responsibletechnological advancements to usher in an era void of technological accidents.

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Workshop News

The intersection of PRA and PHMKatrina Groth

University of MarylandDecember, 2020

The core of U.S. economy, security and quality of life depends on complex engineering systems that range from powerplants, energy systems, and pipelines to aircraft, defense, and transportation systems. These complex engineeringsystems consistent of interconnected and diverse hardware, software, and human elements in dynamic conditions,physical processes, and environments.

PRA, Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) or Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA), and PHM both play a key role inensuring safety, security, and reliability of these systems. However, Moradi and Groth in their article “Modernizing riskassessment: A systematic integration of PRA and PHM techniques” found only a handful of articles at the intersectionof PRA and PHM for complex systems.

Over the past decades, significant advances in sensing and computing have led to an explosion of new data and PHMalgorithms designed to monitor component reliability. However, the methods and tools applicable at a componentlevel are unsuitable for modeling complex engineering systems, which typically fall into the domain of PRA data andmodels.

Exploring the intersection between PRA and PHM is an important goal for the future of our field. In 2019, ASMESERAD and the University of Maryland’s Center for Risk and Reliability envisioned a workshop to bring togetherexperts from both domains to discuss the overlap and think broadly about how the two fields intersect. Initially theworkshop was planned as a fully in-person workshop to be held in April, 2020, but as with many events in 2020, itwas postponed due to the travel restrictions resulting from COVID-19 pandemic.

The organizers recognized that the online format isn’t amenable to the deep discussions which were intended to be atthe heart of the in-person workshop, but we decided to try an experiment: to see if we could make a “preworkshop” asinteractive possible in an era of webinar fatigue. The workshop was reimagined as an online, interactive pre-workshopin 2020, to be followed with the in person, discussion-heavy workshop to be held when we are able to travel again.Thus this event became the “ASME-SERAD and UMD-CRR Interactive seminar & pre-workshop on the intersection ofPRA and PHM,” the first in a two-part series which will culminate when we come together in person in 2021.

The two and a half hour pre-workshop event, which was held in October, 2020, included introduction & workshopobjectives from the organizers, opening remarks from Richard Laudenat, the immediate past president of ASME.Two 20 minute talks by Curtis Smith and Enrique Lopez Droguett, respectively, were designed to give enough of anintroduction to PRA and PHM to allow the audience from both background to have meaningful discussions during thebreakouts. We then broke into 5 breakout groups to address the pre-workshop question “What is the relationshipbetween PRA & PHM? How can they synergize?” and ended with then report-outs from the breakout groups.

The pre-workshop attracted 38 registered participants and a lot of exciting discussion. While I still believe the onlineformat is has limitations, this was the most engaged audience I’ve seen in any of the many virtual meetings of 2020.Many participants commented that they wish the pre-workshop had been longer – which I consider to be high praisein the year that saw the invention of the term “Zoom fatigue.” I thank all of our speakers and participants for playinga key role in creating the level of engagement and discussion that was exceptional and unique in a year of many firsts.Many thanks to ASME SERAD for supporting this event and to my co-organizers Mohammad Pourgol-Mohammad andMohammad Modarres.

See you for the full workshop in person in 2021.

Pre-workshop proceedings are available at https://doi.org/10.13016/ufwe-hqw5. In their article “Modernizing riskassessment: A systematic integration of PRA and PHM techniques,” Moradi and Groth develop a conceptual frameworkfor integrating PRA and PRA.

ReferenceMoradi, R. and K. M. Groth (2020). Modernizing risk assessment: A systematic integration of PRA and PHM techniques.

Reliability Engineering & System Safety 204, 107194.

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Journal & Conference News

ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering SystemsMore Information: https://ascelibrary.org/journal/ajrub7 Contact Prof. Bilal M. Ayyub, Editor in Chief, ba@umd.edu

ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems,Part A: Civil Engineering, Part B: Mechanical Engineering

Alba Sofi, PhD

University “Mediterranea” of Reggio Calabria, Italy, e-mail: alba.sofi@unirc.it

Established in 2014 by the current Editor-in-Chief, Professor Bilal M. Ayyub from the University of Maryland CollegePark, the ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering and PartB: Mechanical Engineering serves as a medium for dissemination of research findings, best practices and concerns,and for discussion and debate on risk and uncertainty-related issues in the areas of civil and mechanical engineeringand other related fields. The journal addresses risk and uncertainty issues in planning, design, analysis, construction/manufacturing, operation, utilization, and life-cycle management of existing and new engineering systems.

Both Part A and Part B are listed in the Emerging Citation Sources by Clarivate Analytics, formerly Thomson Reuters,and it is eligible for indexing in 2018. From 2016 onward, all articles will be included in Web of Science. They arealso included in Scopus.

Part A has successfully secured an impact factor of 1.331 based on the latest Journal Citation Reports by ClarivateAnalytics.

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty contents

Issue Issue Date

Latest Issues (2021)Volume 7-Issue 1 Part A – March 2021, in progress

2020 Table of ContentsVolume 6-Issue 4 Part A Part B December 2020Volume 6-Issue 3 Part A Part B September 2020Volume 6-Issue 2 Part A Part B June 2020Volume 6-Issue 1 Part A Part B March 2020

Latest State of the Art Reviews: Part A

“Probabilistic Inference for Structural Health Monitoring: New Modes of Learning from Data” by Lawrence A. Bull,Paul Gardner, Timothy J. Rogers, Elizabeth J. Cross

“Scale of Fluctuation for Spatially Varying Soils: Estimation Methods and Values” by Brigid Cami, Sina Javankhoshdel,Kok-Kwang Phoon, and Jianye Ching

“Social Indicators to Inform Community Evacuation Modeling and Planning” by William Seites-Rundlett, ElenaGarcia-Bande, Alejandra Álvarez-Mingo, Cristina Torres-Machi, and Ross B. Corotis

“Assessment Methods of Network Resilience for Cyber-Human-Physical Systems” by Sisi Duan and Bilal M. Ayyub

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Latest Review Articles: Part B

“Path Integral Methods for the Probabilistic Analysis of Nonlinear Systems Under a White-Noise Process” by Mario DiPaola and Gioacchino Alotta

“Sensemaking in Critical Situations and in Relation to Resilience - A Review” by Stine S. Kilskar, Brit-Eli Danielsen, StigO. Johnsen

Latest Special Collections: Part A

“Special Collection on Bayesian Learning Methods for Geotechnical Data” Ka-Veng Yuen, Jianye Ching, Kok KwangPhoon

“Special Collection on Resilience Quantification and Modeling for Decision Making” Gian Paolo Cimellaro and Nii O.Attoh-Okine

Latest Special Issues And Special Sections: Part B

“Special Section on Uncertainty Management in Complex Multiphysics Structural Dynamics” by Sifeng Bi, MichaelBeer, Morvan Ouisse, Scott Cogan

“Special Section on Resilience of Engineering Systems” by Geng Feng, Michael Beer, Frank P. A. Coolen, Bilal M. Ayyub,Kok-Kwang Phoon

“Special Issue on Human Performance and Decision-Making in Complex Industrial Environments” by Raphael Moura,Michael Beer, Luca Podofillini

Recognitions & Awards

Recognitions for Papers

Part A

Editor’s Choice Paper “Kriging-Based Design for Robust High-Performance Control Systems” by LauraMicheli and Simon Laflamme

Most Read Paper “Climate Impact Risks and Climate Adaptation Engineering for Built Infrastructure”by Mark G. Stewart and Xiaoli Deng

Most Cited Paper “Practical Resilience Metrics for Planning, Design, and Decision Making” by Bilal M.Ayyub

Editor’s Choice Collection For each issue of the journal, the Chief Editor may select a paper to be featuredon the journal homepage in the ASCE Library. The paper is available for free toregistered users for 1 to 4 months, depending on how frequently the journal ispublished. A list of Editor’s Choice selections is available here.

Part B

Most Read Paper “Digital Twins: State-of-the-Art and Future Directions for Modeling and Simulationin Engineering Dynamics Applications” by D. J. Wagg, K. Worden, R. J. Barthorpe, P.Gardner

Most Cited Paper “A New Approach for Forecasting the Price Range With Financial Interval-ValuedTime Series Data” by Wei Yang and Ai Han

Featured Article “The Application of Downhole Vibration Factor in Drilling Tool Reliability Big DataAnalytics–A Review” by Yali Ren, Ning Wang, Jinwei Jiang, Junxiao Zhu, GangbingSong, Xuemin Chen

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Outstanding Reviewers

Part A 2019 Outstanding Reviewers Part B 2019 Reviewers of the Year

Eleni Chatzi Ekaterina Auer, Hochschule WismarZhiQiang Chen Ioannis Kougioumtzoglou, Columbia UniversityZiad GhauchAhmed LasisiEdoardo PatelliXiaobo QuBalaji RaoMohamed el Amine Ben Seghier

Best Paper Award

Starting in 2019, the Best Paper Award will be given annually to one paper in Part A and one paper in Part B appearingin the preceding volume year. Papers are evaluated by the Editorial Board members based on the following criteria:

• fundamental significance• potential impact• practical relevance to industry• intellectual depth• presentation quality.

ASCE and ASME post the winning paper’s information on the journal website as well as on social media. The winningpapers are made freely available from the ASCE Library (Part A) and from the ASME Digital Collection (Part B) for oneyear to anyone interested once registered and logged in to download. Moreover, ASME offers the authors a one-yearfree subscription to Part B.

The award is typically presented to the authors in attendance at the ASME Safety Engineering and Risk AnalysisDivision (SERAD) award reception meeting at the annual International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition(IMECE). Due to Covid-19 outbreak, IMECE2020 has been converted into a virtual event event and SERAD awardceremony has been held on-line. The recipients of the 2019 Best Paper Award will receive the award’s certificate/plaqueby mail.

The selection process for the 2020 Best Paper Award will start early next year.

Calls for Papers

Part A: active Calls for Special Collections

Special Collection on “Quantification and Propagation in Structural Health Monitoring and Prognostics” (SC041A).Paper submission deadline: December 31, 2020.

Special Collection on “Risk Assessment for Large Scale Geotechnical Systems” (SC045A). Paper submission deadline:April 30, 2021.

Part B: active Calls for Special Issues

Special Issue on “Uncertainty Quantification and Management in Additive Manufacturing” (SI046B). Paper submissiondeadline: February 1, 2021.

Special Issue on “Probabilistic Approaches for Robust Structural Health Monitoring of Wind Energy Infrastructure”(SI047B). Paper submission deadline: March 15, 2021.

Special Issue on “Autonomous Vehicle Technologies: Risk, Resilience, and Reliability” (SI049B). Paper submissiondeadline: March 1, 2021.

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Social media (Twitter and LinkedIn)

The ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems in its two parts is now also active on SocialMedia. Follow our pages on Twitter and LinkedIn:

Twitter: ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty

LinkedIn: ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty

https://chinahow.guide/wechat-registration-sign-up/

to stay up-to-date on latest issues, highlighted journal content, active calls for special issues and special collections,recognitions and awards.

Journal’s Newsletter

The Journal’s Newsletter is sent out on a quarterly basis. To receive updates on the Journal’s progress and announce-ments, subscribe to the Newsletter here: Subscribe to the Journal Newsletter

Submission

Part A: Submit to Part A here

Part B: Submit to Part B here

State-of-the-Art Reviews (Part A) and Review Articles (Part B) on topics of current interest in the field of risk anduncertainty are especially welcome.

Please contact the Editor or Managing Editors by email if you are interested in guest editing a Special Collection(Part A) or a Special Issue (Part B).

Editor Bilal M. Ayyub, University of Maryland, ba@umd.eduManaging Editors Sankaran Mahadevan, Vanderbilt University, sankaran.mahadevan@vanderbilt.edu

Kok-Kwang Phoon, National University of Singapore, kkphoon@nus.edu.sgAssociate Managing Editors Eleni Chatzi, ETH Zurich, chatzi@ibk.baug.ethz.ch

Ioannis Kougioumtzoglou, Columbia University, iak2115@columbia.eduAlba Sofi, University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, alba.sofi@unirc.itXiaobo Qu, Chalmers University of Technology, xiaobo@chalmers.se

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ASME Conference News

Call for Papers Track 14: Safety Engineering, Risk, and Reliability Analysis Track Description The Track contains a collection of Topics in the broad area of safety engineering and risk analysis, which are individually organized by leaders in the field. The topics give a comprehensive coverage of experimental, computational, and analytical approaches to the safety question. Safety Engineering, Risk, and Reliability Analysis - is organized by the Safety Engineering, Risk, and Reliability Analysis Division (SERAD) of the ASME. Track Objectives Authors and presenters are invited to participate in this event to expand international cooperation, understanding, and promotion of efforts and disciplines in the area of Safety Engineering, Risk, and Reliability Analysis. Dissemination of knowledge by presenting research results, new developments, and novel concepts in Safety Engineering, Risk, and Reliability Analysis will serve as the foundation upon which the conference program of this area will be developed.

Track Topics

1. General Topics on Risk, Safety and Reliability 2. Reliability and Risk in Energy Systems 3. Reliability and Safety in Industrial Automation

Systems 4. Reliability and Safety in Transportation

Systems 5. Models and Methods for Probabilistic Risk

Analysis 6. Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Protective

Systems 7. Machine Learning for Safety, Reliability, and

Maintenance 8. Reliability and Safety of Deep Learning-based

Components 9. Big Data and IoT Applications in Reliability,

Maintenance, and Security 10. Crashworthiness, Occupant Protection, and

Biomechanics 11. Congress-Wide Symposium on Prognostic and

Health Management: NDE and prognostics of structures and systems

12. Users, Technology, and Human Reliability in Safety Engineering

13. Student Safety Innovation Challenge 14. Plenary Session

Journal Publication Authors of selected papers presented at the conference will be invited to submit updated and expanded versions of their papers for publication consideration in the ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part B: Mechanical Engineering. Abstract Submission: March 09, 2021 Notification of Acceptance: March 16, 2021 Track Chair Andrey Morozov University of Stuttgart, Germany Track co-Chairs Mihai A. Diaconeasa North Carolina State University, USA Ernie Kee University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA Bill Munsell Munsell Consulting Services, USA John Wiechel SEA Limited, USA

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Wearout

Epistemic or Aleatoric?Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there areknown knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to saywe know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns–the ones we don’tknow we don’t know. (Donald Rumsfeld, 2002)

A practicing engineer is unlikely to think about rootcause as aleatoric or epistemic uncertainty whenaddressing a break down in the next design.

Assessment of aleatoric and epistemic uncertainties has been askedfor in new US Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations underTitle 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations in Part 53, a new Part;a regulatory setting requires clear understanding or definition inthe language of engineering what is meant by these terms.7 Theregulations, as requested in the Nuclear Energy Innovation andModernization Act (NEIMA), recently approved by Congress andExecutive branches for a “risk-informed, performance-based frame-work”, are the Commission’s response. Importantly, the legislationand regulations flowing from it applies to “advanced reactors”

Engineers are well aware that any device or collection of devicescan break down unexpectedly; the concept of root cause analysis isused to isolate the immediate cause for the break down. They areeven more acutely aware that a substantial departure from familiardesigns that have have break downs arising from “known unknowns”is likely to invite break downs due from “unknown unknowns.”

Engineers who are good at root cause analysis can determine if abreak down arose from a physical cause, that is, something that canbe assigned to physics, or improper operation or maintenance. Atthe time a break down occurs, the engineer digs into the physics,it is unlikely the divvy between aleatoric and epistemic uncertaintyis reviewed as such; it seems incongruous to imagine an engineerwondering about a break down as depicted in here. Similarly, theengineer is unlikely to think about classifying uncertainties in designsthis way although it has been pointed out to me the ASCE Standard,ASCE/SEI 7-16 does ask for consideration of epistemology.8

Thinking about the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s development of regulation for new reactors engineers inthe industry and the Commission would certainly wonder how they can be sure a future accident can be avoided inan advanced reactor. The concepts of safety margin, defense in depth are most likely in the forefront of engineers’thinking when considering such dangerous process designs. Engineers use logic structures, such as Failure Modes andEffects Analysis (FMEA), fault trees, and event trees, to reveal where a single failures could lead to consequentialaccidents; they attempt to add backup where they find exposures to single failure. If a single failure event can notbe avoided, they are reluctant to accept the design unless the failure of the device has been tested thoroughly andincludes substantial safety margin. They will want to require regular inspections of the device in order to ensure thedesign remains fully intact and the safety margin remains in effect over the device service life.

In this engineer’s opinion, introduction of terms from the philosophical domain into regulation of engineeredprotections adds unnecessary confusion in the engineering domain where the risk assessment is based on physics,service experience, test, and principles of reliability and safety engineering have been used successfully for many years.This is not to say that epistemology is of no concern; serious scientists wrestle with the philosophical foundationsunder their assertions. But engineers, as “end users” of scientific principles they use in design analysis, necessarilyaccept the science that produced the physical principles upon which they base their designs. So too, regulations mustassume the scientific foundations of engineering physics are settled.

What are your thoughts? Let’s talk!Ernie Kee, SER2AD EditorSend your feedback/thoughts on this or any reliability subject to me at erniekee@illinois.edu.

7Their meaning is not a simple matter. Epistemology, for example see https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/. Accessed 28 December2020.

8Personal communication, Farshadmanesh and Kee, 23 December 2020.

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SER2AD Committee

Table 1. 2018–2019 SER2AD Committee Membership

Executive Committee Appointments

Position Person Position Person

Chair Mohammad Pourgol-Mohammad,pourgol-mohamadm2@asme.org

NominatingChair

Open

1st Vice-Chair Xiaobin Le, lex@wit.edu Award Chairs Jeremy Gernand, ,jmg64@psu.eduJohn Weichel, ,jwiechel@sealimited.com

2nd Vice-Chair-Treasurer

Arun Veeramany, ,arun.veeramany@pnnl.gov

Newsletter Edi-tor

Ernie Kee, erniekee@illinois.edu

3rd Vice Chair-Membership

Stephen Ekwaro-Osire, ,Stephen.Ekwaro-Osire@ttu.edu

Webinars / Out-reach Chair

Open

4th Vice-Chair-Secretary

Mihai Diaconeasa ,madiacon@ncsu.edu

StudentProgramCoordinator

Deivi Garcia, ,deivi.garciagarzon@gmail.com

Past Chair Jeremy Gernand jmg64@psu.edu TechnicalContentCoordinator

Giulio Malinverno, ,giulio.malinverno@gmail.com

MECE 2021Track Organizers

Andrey Morozov, ,andrey.morozov@tu-dresden.deErnie KeeBill Munsell, bmunsell@att.netMihai Diaconeasa

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