Global Reliability of Structures and Infrastructure Systems

The design and assessment of structures have traditionally been developed within a framework centered on the individual structure. Present standards and codes mainly address structural safety and performance by considering structures as assemblies of interconnected components, with corresponding component-related and system-related failure modes treated within relatively well-defined design situations. This approach has provided an essential and highly successful foundation for modern engineering practice. However, it does not explicitly capture the broader challenges that arise when structures and groups of structures must be understood as parts of larger, interconnected systems of systems.

In reality, structures rarely function in isolation. Buildings, bridges, tunnels, ports, lifeline networks, and other critical infrastructure elements are embedded in technical, social, economic, and environmental contexts with strong interdependencies. Failures may therefore propagate across physical and organizational boundaries, trigger cascading effects, and generate direct as well as indirect consequences far beyond the initially affected asset. Likewise, structural performance may be challenged by events that deviate from the assumptions underlying existing design bases, including rare, poorly understood, and in some cases not yet fully imaginable scenarios.

These issues are becoming increasingly important in light of climate change, growing interdependencies in infrastructure and supply systems, global crises, and threats associated with conflict and hybrid warfare. In such contexts, the relevant question is no longer only whether an individual structure satisfies prescribed reliability targets under codified loading assumptions, but also how structural systems contribute to the reliability, robustness, and continued functioning of larger societal systems under substantial or even deep uncertainty.

A global reliability perspective seeks to address this challenge. It extends the focus from the reliability of individual structures to the reliability implications of interactions among structures, infrastructure networks, and the systems that depend on them. Such a perspective must explicitly engage with robustness, progressive and cascading failure processes, consequence propagation, and the limits of present knowledge. It must also confront the fact that future hazards and threat environments may not be fully represented by historical data or current design conventions.

The objective of this workshop is therefore not only to discuss technical methods, but first and foremost to contribute to the establishment of a shared conceptual and philosophical foundation for future work in this area. The workshop aims to bring together researchers working on structural reliability, risk, systems modelling, infrastructure resilience, and related fields in order to clarify the basic concepts, frame the central research questions, and identify common ground for subsequent methodological developments.