Extreme Event Scenarios for Planning of Infrastructure Projects

Abstract

In project planning, several design concepts are considered to examine the potential to lower the lifecycle costs of the structure without sacrificing significant performance. Various natures of unusual and extreme events should be considered, and the nature and frequencies of such events may not yet be known. In addition, the details of design alternatives in early feasibility stages may not yet be specified. The identification of multiple stakeholders (e.g., local, regional, and national interests) may not be complete. A cost-benefit analysis would require complete knowledge of design alternatives, event frequencies and impacts, and stakeholders. A process is developed in this work to explore the costs and performance of preliminary design concepts for infrastructure projects that are vulnerable to several extreme events that would have an impact to multiple stakeholders. An example with inland navigation lock walls subjected to barge impacts and earthquake loads is provided. Complementary performance metrics that are applied include repair cost, time to recover, and cost to industry. Several magnitudes and frequencies of event scenarios are characterized, and some relevant features of a software tool developed for preliminary design evaluation of navigation lock walls are described.