An Overview of Uncertainty Concepts Related to Mechanical and Civil Engineering

Infrastructure decisions reflect multiple social, political, and economic aspects of society, leading to information/partial knowledge and uncertainty in many forms. Alternatives to classical probability theory may be better suited to situations involving partial information, especially when the sources and nature of the uncertainty are disparate. Methods under the umbrella of generalized information theory enhance the treatment of uncertainty by incorporating notions of belief, evidence, fuzziness, possibility, ignorance, interactivity, and linguistic information. This paper presents an overview of some of these theories and examines the use of alternate mathematical approaches in the treatment of uncertainty, with structural engineering examples.