Accuracy and uncertainty: a false dichotomy in engineering education. A case study from civil engineering

• Autores: A. Elshorbagy
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 24, no. 1, 2008, págs. 137-143
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Predictive uncertainty is an important concept that civil engineering students should understand. The students need to realize that uncertainty is inevitable in spite of the efforts made to make models, algorithms, and analysis techniques as accurate as possible. In this paper, the issue of uncertainty is addressed through an illustrative example from the field of surface water quality management. The example demonstrates that simple probabilistic analysis can be effective for both walking the students through the issue of uncertainty and realistically quantifying the uncertainty for real-life civil engineering applications.