HRPP379-Time-dependent reliab... of anchored sheet pile walls

Flood defence maintenance strategies require understanding of the time-dependent behaviour of flood defences. Quantitative risk and reliability methods provide a rational decision-making basis for flood defence management. Failure mechanisms influencing the flood defence reliability are expressed by a limit state equation and organised in a fault tree. One or more random variables in the limit state equation may be time-dependent. Quantitative information about and understanding of time-dependency of flood defences is often limited. A modelling methodology identifying the relevant variables and uncertainties involved with timedependent processes, the character of the process and appropriate statistical models is therefore introduced. The modelling methodology is demonstrated on anchored sheet pile walls in a flood defence system in the Thames Estuary.