Abstract Collecting structural information by inspection or monitoring is important means to reduce uncertainty and improve the qualities of maintenance decisions in structural integrity management. However, information collecting inevitably involves some costs. When information collecting brings added value and to what extent uncertainty reduction suffices are questions that are often not fully accounted for before information collecting activities are carried out. Value of information (VoI) computation helps justifying investments and informing efficient strategies for information collecting. This paper develops a holistic approach to quantify the VoI from multiple inspections in the lifetime of an engineering structure, taking into account combined effects of lifetime maintenance interventions. The approach can be used for holistic planning and optimization of lifetime inspections at an early stage. Also, a simplified VoI computation approach is developed for some maintenance decision cases based on an alignment decision strategy (ADS). The approaches are exemplified on a typical marine structure, and sensitivities of VoI to the number of planned interventions, cost ratio, inspection times and methods are studied. It is shown that the ADS and the simplified method are well applicable when the number of planned interventions is large. The optimal maintenance decisions and inspection times obtained by VoI-based and cost-based optimization methods are compared.

中文翻译：

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一种用于不确定条件下知情结构完整性管理的信息计算整体价值的简化方法

摘要 通过检查或监测收集结构信息是减少结构完整性管理中的不确定性和提高维修决策质量的重要手段。然而，信息收集不可避免地涉及一些成本。信息收集何时带来附加值以及不确定性减少到什么程度就足够了，这些问题在开展信息收集活动之前往往没有得到充分考虑。信息价值 (VoI) 计算有助于证明投资的合理性并为信息收集的有效策略提供信息。本文开发了一种整体方法来量化工程结构生命周期中多次检查的 VoI，同时考虑到生命周期维护干预的综合影响。该方法可用于早期阶段的整体规划和寿命检查优化。此外，还针对基于对齐决策策略 (ADS) 的一些维护决策案例开发了一种简化的 VoI 计算方法。这些方法以典型的海洋结构为例，并研究了 VoI 对计划干预次数、成本比率、检查时间和方法的敏感性。结果表明，当计划干预次数较多时，ADS 和简化方法具有较好的适用性。比较了基于 VoI 和基于成本的优化方法获得的最佳维护决策和检查时间。针对一些基于对齐决策策略 (ADS) 的维护决策案例，开发了一种简化的 VoI 计算方法。这些方法以典型的海洋结构为例，并研究了 VoI 对计划干预次数、成本比率、检查时间和方法的敏感性。结果表明，当计划干预次数较多时，ADS 和简化方法具有较好的适用性。比较了基于 VoI 和基于成本的优化方法获得的最佳维护决策和检查时间。针对一些基于对齐决策策略 (ADS) 的维护决策案例，开发了一种简化的 VoI 计算方法。这些方法以典型的海洋结构为例，并研究了 VoI 对计划干预次数、成本比率、检查时间和方法的敏感性。结果表明，当计划干预次数较多时，ADS 和简化方法具有较好的适用性。比较了基于 VoI 和基于成本的优化方法获得的最佳维护决策和检查时间。结果表明，当计划干预次数较多时，ADS 和简化方法具有较好的适用性。比较了基于 VoI 和基于成本的优化方法获得的最佳维护决策和检查时间。结果表明，当计划干预次数较多时，ADS 和简化方法具有较好的适用性。比较了基于 VoI 和基于成本的优化方法获得的最佳维护决策和检查时间。