RISK ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE Minutes

Present:

Kelly Moses, Limin Zhang representing Wilson Tang, Ed Glynn, Mishac Yegian, Maureen Kestler, T. H. Wu, Gordon Fenton, Hsien Juang.

Bill Roberds, Mehmet Tumay, Adrian Rodriguez-Marek, Bob Gilbert, Erik Vanmarcke, Vaughan Griffiths, K. K. Phoon, Achintya Halder, Stan Miller, Mary Roth, Wilson Tang, Dimitri Grivas, Thomas Wolff, Philippe Bourdeau.

1. The meeting was opened at 9.10am by Gordon Fenton.
2. Members present introduced themselves.
3. The previous minutes were reviewed. There were no corrections.
4. Mary Ellen Hynes was not present. She has been replaced by Gregg Scott as our new Councilor, who was also not present.
5. Gordon Fenton reported on the past year's accomplishments:
   • The committee organized 1 session at the Amherst specialty conference (Bob Gilbert),
   • 7 sessions were organized at GeoDenver by Griffiths and Fenton. These resulted in a `Slope Stability' GSP, No. 101.
   • the GSP on NGES, edited by Vanmarcke is still under production.
   • PMC2000 was co-sponsored by our committee. Fenton was on the steering committee.
6. Ongoing activities were reviewed by Gordon Fenton:
   • A short course is being planned for ISSGE at Istanbul, Aug 24, 2001, and at SEAC in Hong Kong, 2001
   • Fenton and Phoon are organizing a session on reliability-based design at the IWS Kamakura, Japan, in 2002
   • Fenton is organizing a session at SDEE2001 to be held at Drexel University in October, 2001.
7. Future activities:
   • Pan-American Conf., 2003 in Boston. Possible sessions we could organize are slope stability for natural and man-made slopes. Ed Glynn will contact Herb Einstein to investigate the possibility of such a session. Another possible session is on risk-based design. Fenton will see what happens during the planning for Kamakura that might be useful. Bill Roberds may have a contribution to make towards the Pan-Am conference session.
   • A G-I specialty conference in 2004? Possibilities include a state of knowledge report from this committee, which could become a GSP. This may be based on our short course notes but should also include comparisons between reliability-based designs and conventional designs (include cost/decision making). For this purpose, the committee members are asked to keep an eye out for comparative case studies. Ed Glynn suggested a reliability-based prediction competition.
     Also a workshop on reliability-based design was suggested. Contents may include comparison of reliability-based and conventional method for an example problem, emphasizing cost versus safety margin, case histories, and update on LRFD design in the AASHTO code. Sam Piakowsky may be able to contribute to the last topic.
   • 2005 G-I Congress in Austin. Needs ideas.
   • 2008. Yegian is planning an EEDS 10th anniversary conference on the west coast.
8. Coordination with other ASCE committees:
   • Yegian suggested that we coordinate with the EESD committee to organize a session on probabilistic hazard assessment at the project level (performance-based design) for the 2004 G-I specialty conference. Fenton and Yegian will look into this. Wilson Tang may want to participate.
9. Coordination with other committees:
   • TRB: Maureen Kestler reports on a circular on reliability-based pavement design, scheduled for 2002. Kestler is stepping down from the chair of her committee in TRB. The new chair will be Reed Freeman. Our committee may be providing a chapter on geo-statistics to the circular.
   • ISSMGE, TC32. The Istanbul Short course will be conducted jointly with TC32 members.
10. Future initiatives:
    • Providing a `risk assessment' bibliography on our web page was suggested. Is anybody interested in compiling the list of papers? Fenton will implement it on the web.
11. Awards:
    • Mary Roth will be asked to remain as the coordinator.
12. Web page:
    • Posting the short-course notes on the web was suggested. Fenton will check this with the authors.
13. Publicity:
    • Ed Glynn will write a news article for Geo-Strata.
14. New Business:
    • The value of neuro-systems in reliability-based design was discussed. Opinions are mixed but no great enthusiasm was shown.
    • The use of CD for dissemination of information was discussed. Yegian pointed out that we need to be aware of new possibilities and developments.
    The next committee meeting may be in Orlando, Feb, 2002, or Washington, Nov, 2002. Committee members are encouraged to email Fenton (Gordon.Fenton@dal.ca) to express their preference (or suitable alternative) by Sep 1, 2001.