Amador-Jimenez - Civil engineering systems analysis

CIVIL ENGINEERING

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

CIVIL ENGINEERING

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

LUIS AMADOR-JIMENEZ

Concordia University, Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Amador-Jimenez, Luis, author.

Title: Civil engineering systems analysis / Luis Amador-Jimenez.

Description: Boca Raton : Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016017853 | ISBN 9781482260793 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Civil engineering.

Classification: LCC TA147 .A43 2017 | DDC 624.01/1--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017853

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In loving memory of my dad (Luis Amador Sibaja) and

my grandmothers Claudia and Marina Chavarra Robles.

Contents

Individuals make hundreds of decisions every day, sometimes consciously but often unconciously. In doing so, we aim to achieve certain goals but, however, face restrictions. By reading this book, you aim to learn, or perhaps simply to obtain a good grade at school, but you are faced with a limited amount of time available to dedicate to it. A few personal decisions are transcendent enough to be organized into a more formal framework. Those consuming significant amounts of their own resources (purchase of a house/car or a major trip overseas) surpass a threshold level that force us to look into alternatives and to choose carefully.

This book deals with the methods and techniques that a civil engineer can use when analysing a system. It provides a means for supporting the decision-making process for the allocation of resources under circumstances with either conflicting goals or limited availability. The book presents two types of chapters; those intended to provide the basic foundations in mathematics, statistics and economics, and those that introduce and develop the application of the methods to real-world scenarios.

Civil Engineering Systems Analysis is a textbook of reference that teaches how to analyse engineering problems; however, its models are limited to the variables and facts incorporated into the analysis. Other variables and facts remaining outside the analysis should be used in a secondary stage to further reduce the set of choices or to choose the most convenient alternative.

The book is structured as follows: introduces uncertainty through decision trees and the use of conditional probabilities in decision-making.

Before we jump into that, I would like to close this preface by encouraging you to take the methods presented in this book and attempt to apply them as you learn them. Think about common day-to-day problems: Have you ever walked into the metro platform to a position that perfectly aligns you to the exit at your exit stop while you wait for the train to arrive? Do you ever purchase at the grocery store by analysing calories, fat and nutrient contents in addition to the price? Or do you ever buy what is on sale and enough to last until the next time it will be on sale? As you will soon notice, eventually, any decision you make in your personal and professional life can be optimized.

Luis Amador-Jimenez

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Civil engineers deal with three main tasks during their career: analysis, design and construction. When analysing, engineers are commonly required to verify and suggest means to comply with regulations or ways to improve the performance of a system, and, in doing so, they seek to achieve performance goals. In designing, engineers face the need to create built environment, and this typically results in conflicting objectives of professionalism, developers interests and resources. Finally, during construction, an engineer faces the need to allocate labour, equipment and materials to reach given milestones on time. However, timely achievement of such deadlines requires more intensive use of the resources mentioned which triggers project cost. Hence, the engineer is faced with two common conflicting goals: minimization of resource utilization and achievement of a certain level of quality and/or performance.

This morning, when you woke up, did the possibility to continue sleeping cross your mind? If so, then you had to make your first decision of the day. Why do you like to sleep? Your body gets some rest, you recover your energy and even your capability to learn reaches its highest point. So why then did you stand up and initiate your day instead of sleeping? You possibly either had breakfast, took a shower, exercised or finished your video game. Some time ago, economies defined a concept called utility, for you and me (who stay in bed for another 30 minutes). Sleeping gives us satisfaction, is valuable, is useful or, in other words, gives us utility. But the utility of sleeping was not as important for those who woke up and started their daily activities, perhaps because they have already slept for over 10 hours.