MecE 300, Lecture 3 Textbook chapter 7

Experimental Uncertainty Analysis

Why is it important to have a good estimate of the error in a measurement system?

Case study: Deepwater Horizon Disaster:

Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling rig

On 20 Apr 2010 the crew of the drilling platform was

in the process of plugging the well to move the rig.

A BP manager instructed the rig operator to replace

the heavy drilling mud in the riser with much lighter
seawater to speed up the procedure.
Control room with drilling process monitors

At the time the drilling crew did not know that the integrity of the shoe section of the well was compromised and the blow out

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MecE 300, Lecture 3 Textbook chapter 7

preventer was damaged. A pressure test of the well had been performed incorrectly. At about 21:00, after replacing most of the
drilling mud the measurements in the control room where as shown below:

a) Drill pipe pressure seemed to be increasing in

spite of constant pump volume flow. Expected
was a slight decrease.

b) The calibrated flow out of the drill pipe appeared

larger than the pump flow into the drill pipe.
Expected was that they be about the same.

c) Outflow from the drill pipe fluctuated strongly.

Decision point:

Stop the procedure and control the well

- or -

Ignore the anomaly and keep going

Why is it difficult to make this decision?

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MecE 300, Lecture 3 Textbook chapter 7

Source: http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/gom_response/
STAGING/local_assets/downloads_pdfs/Deepwater_Horizon_Accident_Investigation_static_presentation.pdf

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MecE 300, Lecture 3 Textbook chapter 7

Sound decisions rely on a good estimate of the error inherent in a measurement.

Example: If 95 % of repeated measurements of xi fulfill the equation:

The measurement of x has an uncertainty of w.

We consider two components of uncertainty separately:

Uncertainty associated with systematic error:

Uncertainty associated with random error:

For random uncertainty that was determined on a large sample we find for the total uncertainty:

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MecE 300, Lecture 3 Textbook chapter 7

Propagation of Uncertainty

What is the uncertainty of a result, R, that is a function of multiple measurands, xi, that each have
an uncertainty wi?

We perform a Taylor series expansion about the true value of function R  f  xi :

a) for the simplest case of only one variable:

f  2 f  x  xt 
2
R  f  xt    x  xt   2  ... Rearrange and square:
x x 2
2
 f  2
f w 2

 R  f  xt 2  wR2   wx  2 x  ...
 x x 2 
First assumption: The uncertainties are small.

Hence, the Taylor series can be truncated after the first term:

 f f
2

wR   wx   wx
 x  x

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MecE 300, Lecture 3 Textbook chapter 7

b) for two variables x1 and x2.

Taylor series expansion:

f f 1  2 f 2 2 f 2 f 2 
wR  wx ,1  wx , 2   2 wx ,1  2 wx ,1 wx , 2  2 wx , 2   ...
x1 x2 2  x1 x1x2 x2 

Neglect higher order terms and square:

The last term describes the effect of covariance.

Covariance describes the nature of the correlation between two random variables

If random variables show a positive correlation:

If they show an inverse correlation:
If they are uncorrelated:

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