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EXAMINATION PAPER : ACADEMIC SESSION 2013/2014

Campus Medway
School Engineering
Department Civil Engineering
Programme MSc/MEng Engineering Suite
COURSE TITLE Analysis and Management of Risk in Civil Engineering
COURSE CODE CIVI 1021
LEVEL 7
Date and Duration April-May 2014, 3 Hours
(incl. reading time)
Paper Set By Dr Hua-Peng Chen

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES
&
INFORMATION FOR INVIGILATORS

The attention of the students is directed to the instructions printed on the answer
book.

Answer FIVE out of the following seven questions.

All Questions carry equal marks.

Duration : 3 Hours

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Date & Duration of Exam: April-May 2014, 3 Hours
Course Title: Analysis and Management of Risk in Civil Engineering
Course Code: CIVI 1021
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Q1.
(a) Discuss the contents of a Risk Register and show in outline how the Risk Register
works in civil engineering underground works such as deep excavation.
[10 Marks]

(b) Analyse the major features of an Environmental Impact Assessment including risk
identification and assessment for a reservoir which is to be sustainably constructed on
a large river within a populated area.
[10 Marks]

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Date & Duration of Exam: April-May 2014, 3 Hours
Course Title: Analysis and Management of Risk in Civil Engineering
Course Code: CIVI 1021
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Q2.
The following successive durations, but with unrelated probability, have been assessed for
operations for the concreting of a bridge deck, i.e. they need to be completed in sequence.
The probable duration and cost for each of the operations with probability are given below.

(A) Installation of reinforcement

operation duration, hour cost, £ per m2 probability
Installation 12 £400 0.1
16 £580 0.6
20 £750 0.3

(B) Supply of ready mixed concrete

operation duration, hour cost, £ per m2 probability
delivery 1 £40 0.3
2 £75 0.4
4 £150 0.3

(C) Placing and compaction of concrete

operation duration, hour cost, £ per m2 probability
placing and compacting 4 £120 0.3
6 £180 0.5
8 £250 0.2

(a) Determine:
(i) The minimum construction period and cost, the probability of this occurring.
[5 Marks]
(ii) The maximum construction period and cost, the probability of this occurring.
[5 Marks]
(iii) The most likely construction period and cost.
[5 Marks]

(b) Show in outline, using the results obtained above, how you would manage the risk of
delay and excessive cost during the construction period.
[5 Marks]

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Date & Duration of Exam: April-May 2014, 3 Hours
Course Title: Analysis and Management of Risk in Civil Engineering
Course Code: CIVI 1021
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Q3.

Sea defences provide essential protection for coastal lowlands against flooding. The risk of
land flooding can increase in the future due to climate change. In the recently released UK
Climate Projections Briefing report (UKCP09), sea level will continue to rise and the
predicted sea level rise depends on CO2 emission scenarios, i.e. low emissions, medium
emissions and high emissions. In risk analyses, event trees illustrate the intermediate and
final outcomes which may arise after an initial event.

(a) Critically identify risks and analyse potential consequences for the sea defences
affected by climate change, for example, an earth coastal embankment.
[10 Marks]

(b) Draw the event tree with consequences of climate change for the earth coastal
embankment.
[10 Marks]

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Date & Duration of Exam: April-May 2014, 3 Hours
Course Title: Analysis and Management of Risk in Civil Engineering
Course Code: CIVI 1021
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Q4.

(a) Discuss the key steps in systematic risk management in civil engineering construction
projects. Explain the major benefits of systematic risk management.
[10 Marks]

(b) Critically analyse how a contractor can apply quantitative techniques to assess risks
when tendering for an international project.
[10 Marks]

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Date & Duration of Exam: April-May 2014, 3 Hours
Course Title: Analysis and Management of Risk in Civil Engineering
Course Code: CIVI 1021
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Q5.

(a) Earthquakes can be considered as stochastic events and described as a Poisson process
in time. For the event with the rate of occurrence λ in the Poisson process, the
probability that k events occur in the period of time (0,t) is calculate
(t ) k t
from p(k ; (0, t ),  )  e . In a region concerned, on the average 3 damaging
k!
earthquakes occur every 20 years. Determine:

(i) The probability of getting 1 damaging earthquake in 10 years.

[4 Marks]

(ii) The probability of no damaging earthquake in 10 years.

[4 Marks]

(iii) The probability of having at least 1 earthquake in 20 years.

[4 Marks]

(b) Discuss in detail the measures that should be used for reducing the risks caused by
earthquakes in this region for existing brick masonry buildings.
[8 Marks]

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Date & Duration of Exam: April-May 2014, 3 Hours
Course Title: Analysis and Management of Risk in Civil Engineering
Course Code: CIVI 1021
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Q6.

For existing reinforced concrete bridges, in order to keep the systems reliable and sustainable
it is important to identify the possible mechanisms of failures and to perform structural
reliability analyses for the expected probability of such failures. In risk assessment, fault tree
analysis is a systematic and deductive technique that is often used for the analysis.

(a) Critically analyse the potential failure mechanisms of an existing reinforced concrete
bridge in terms of serviceability, durability and load capacity of the structure.
[10 Marks]

(b) Draw the fault tree for the failure of the existing reinforced concrete bridge.
[10 Marks]

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Date & Duration of Exam: April-May 2014, 3 Hours
Course Title: Analysis and Management of Risk in Civil Engineering
Course Code: CIVI 1021
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Q7.

(a) Contamination may be present at a site as a result of a historic or current industrial

use. A three-phase management process should be used for the safe development of
housing on land affected by contamination. Discuss in detail how the three-phase
management process works in practice.
[10 Marks]

(b) In order to sustainably redevelop a brown field site, a statistical test for potentially
contaminated soils relative to Soil Guideline Values (SGV) is necessary to
quantitatively analyse risks to human health. It is assumed that the distribution of the
contaminant over the site follows the student's t distribution. Consider an averaging
area in which n = 6 samples are taken with contaminant concentrations as follows:

x1 x2 x3 x4 x5 x6
234 134 204 221 187 253

Let the Soil Guideline Value for the contaminant be SGV = 200.

Compute the following statistics and decide if remedial actions may be needed:

(i) arithmetic sample mean,

(ii) unbiased standard deviation,

(iii) normalised upper bound for 95th percentile confidence in which t = 2.015 for
n=6 for single-tailed student's t tests.
[10 Marks]

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Date & Duration of Exam: April-May 2014, 3 Hours
Course Title: Analysis and Management of Risk in Civil Engineering
Course Code: CIVI 1021
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