Value of Information Analysis in Structural Safety

Pre-posterior analysis can be used to assess the potential of an experiment to enhance decision making by providing information on parameters characterized by uncertainty. The present paper describes a framework for pre-posterior analysis for support of decisions related to maintenance of structural systems. In this context, experiments may refer to inspections or techniques of structural health monitoring. The Value of Information concept provides a powerful tool for determining whether the experimental cost is justified by the expected benefit and for identifying the optimal among different possible experimental schemes. This concept is elaborated through principal examples for structural components and system models. Sensitivity analyses are performed to investigate how the decision problem is influenced by the level of uncertainty that characterizes the structural properties, the amount and quality of information and the probabilistic dependencies between components of a system.