Research Philosophy

The research philosophy of the RILCIE program can be summarized by the following catchwords: 1 system, 2 layers, 3 thrusts, and 4 dimensions. They are briefly explained below.

One Interdependent System

The research program takes the system of systems approach by treating all infrastructure systems as a component of the whole urban infrastructure system. Although the major achievements so far are still largely involved an isolated infrastructure system, the long-term goal of the program is to develop the RILCIE theory to address the silo effects existing in every cluster of the infrastructure ecology. The program has studied most of the infrastructure systems except the information and communication technology (ICT) systems. The current research in structural robustness and infrastructure asset management will be extended to cover urban infrastructure resilience under climate change and extreme events.

Figure 1: One interdependent system of infrastructure systems.

Two Layers

The two layers refers to the two-layer engineering research strategy the Program is taking. At the bottom is fundamental research related to risk and reliability modelling, system analysis, and decision theory. At the top is applied research that involves specific methods and tools for specific tasks in design and management of the infrastructure systems. This strategy can ensure that at the one hand the whole research group shares a common research ideal in the conceptual and methodological level, whereas each member in the group may make his or her individual contribution to specific engineering problems.

Three Main Thrusts

Currently, the research is broadly divided into three main thrusts around the common theme of risk and uncertainty. They are structural safety and robustness, large project delivery, and infrastructure asset management, which roughly correspond to the design, construction, and operation and maintenance, respectively.

Figure 2: The three main research thrusts around risk and uncertainty: structural safety and robustness, infrastructure asset management, and large project delivery

Four Dimensions

The systems approach taking by the RILCIE program considers the following four dimensions (Figure 3):

Figure 3: The four dimensions of civil engineering systems analysis, design and management

  • The lifecycle dimension refers to the fact that issues at any phase of the lifecycle must be investigated and solved under the whole lifecycle lens. A quality of documents issue occurred in the design and development stage may be affected by insufficient scoping during the upfront planning stage, and affect the bidding and construction.
  • The scale dimension of systems analysis suggests that any civil engineering systems analysis must deal with multi-scale modelling. As shown in the figure, this involves not only the technical modelling starting from material behaviour through components to the system, but also the interface modelling for a system of systems (i.e. network) and the soft aspect in legal, institutional and governance modelling.
  • The risk and uncertainty dimension is also the knowledge dimension. As the well-known risk analysis researcher, Professor Terje Aven, rightfully pointed out: risk management is all about knowledge management. Civil systems engineering and management must equally address what are known and what are unknown.
  • The human and institutional dimension has been explained in the scale dimension, but it is highlighted here for its importance. Civil engineering research traditionally focused on the hard, technological aspect of the system, whereas the soft aspect related to the legal, societal, institutional and governance issues have not been given the due share of investigation. Part of the RILCIE program wants to take such a balanced approach by considering both hard and soft problems before proposing a truly systems, holistic solution in order to avoid the ‘solution-becomes-a-problem’ curse. The research in all three research thrusts touch upon the soft side. For example, in the development an optimal robustness-based design for reinforced concrete frame structures under progressive collapse threats, we considered not only the nonlinear pushdown and probabilistic risk analysis, but also the societal risk preference towards the low-probability-high-consequence feature of the progressive collapse threats. Similarly, in large public infrastructure delivery, the cost overrun issue, quality of document issues, dispute resolutions, and so on, all must be examined in the given social norms and contractual environments. Governance through design codes, technical standards, contracts, regulations, and the like, must be taken into considerations as well.

Research Opportunities

The RIII Lab keeps recruiting self-motivated researchers at all levels (undergraduate, masters, PhD and post-doctoral fellow) from time to time. Young researchers looking for research opportunities are encouraged to contact Dr. Arnold Yuan via email (arnold dot yuan at torontomu dot ca).

The recruitment focus includes infrastructural resilience, infrastructure asset management, structural reliability, and legal case analysis for construction lawsuits:

  • Infrastructure resilience – Focusing on impact of climate change and multiple hazards on infrastructure planning, design, operations and management. Applicants are expected to have a good demand of engineering risk and reliability and at least one of the following infrastructure systems: building structures, earthquake engineering, pavement structures, bridges, municipal pipes, transportation network, oil and gas pipelines.
  • Infrastructure asset management — Applicants are expected to have good knowledge of materials, design and life-cycle activities of one of the following asset types: pavements, bridges, municipal pipes, oil and gas pipelines. Candidates are expected to work on stochastic degradation modelling, lifecycle costing analysis, and network optimization.
  • Use of natural language processing for legal case analysis in construction litigation — Applicants must have a solid background on construction management. Experience with claims and dispute resolution will be a good asset.
  • Structural reliability I – There are two thrusts: progressive collapse design of concrete structures and lifecycle pavement analysis and design. Applicants are expected to have a solid background on either nonlinear analysis of concrete structures or mechanistic-empirical pavement design (MEPDG). Proficiency in OpenSEES or AASHTOware Pavement ME Design will be a good asset. Surrogate modelling and lifecycle optimization are the research focus.
  • Structural reliability II – This theme focuses on probabilistic structural integrity assessment and management for components, structures and systems of nuclear power generation stations. High-performance computing, uncertainty analysis, and decision making under uncertainty are the primary research topics.

For all themes, applicants are expected to have a solid command on MATLAB, Python or R.

When you send your first inquiry email, please (1) indicate which research theme you would like to work on, (2) identify at least three major active researchers (not your references) in the world, and (3) explain why you choose Ryerson and me for further study. General inquiries that do not include those elements will NOT get responded.