Economic interventionism | EPFL Graph Search

Economic interventionism, sometimes also called state interventionism, is an economic policy position favouring government intervention in the market process with the intention of correcting market failures and promoting the general welfare of the people. An economic intervention is an action taken by a government or international institution in a market economy in an effort to impact the economy beyond the basic regulation of fraud, enforcement of contracts, and provision of public goods and services. Economic intervention can be aimed at a variety of political or economic objectives, such as promoting economic growth, increasing employment, raising wages, raising or reducing prices, promoting income equality, managing the money supply and interest rates, increasing profits, or addressing market failures. The term intervention is typically used by advocates of laissez-faire and free market capitalism. The state is inherently different from the private market economy because of the st

Methodology for Comparing Strategies in Seismic Risk Management of Existing Building Population

Marc Badoux, Vincent Pellissier

This paper presents the approach of a current research project at the EPFL in the area of seismic risk management. The objective of the project is to define and test a methodology for the quantitative characterization and comparison of intervention strategies in a risk management framework. A tool to assist in the selection of an intervention strategy will be developed. The project includes a pilot project for the seismic risk management of a small town in Switzerland. The selection of an intervention strategy raises two categories of problems. The first is connected to the quality of the information available. The second is connected to the variety of the criteria integrated in the decision-making process. The use of multi-criteria methods facilitates decision-making. Concerning the type of multi-criteria methods, experience has drawn attention to the quality of the “surclassement” methods (e.g. ELECTRE), because they can deal equally with qualitative or quantitative criteria.

20th European Regional Earthquake Engineering Seminar2001

A GIS based approach for analysing geological and operation conditions influence on road tunnels degradation

Vincent Labiouse, Federica Sandrone

Adopting effective maintenance strategies for transportation infrastructures requires good prediction of their long-term behaviour. For planning interventions without affecting the entire network’s capacity, tunnels in particular require a good overview of expected problems. G.I.S. tools are helpful for managing transportation networks since they allow immediate identification the influence of tunnel location on development of specific disorders. A G.I.S. based approach for analysing and predicting degradation processes affecting roads tunnels is presented. The results show how tunnels location may inform on main problems observed in concrete lined tunnels during their service life. The agreement of analyses results and disorders identified during inspections allows considering G.I.S. promising tools for pathologies detection and decision about preventive maintenance.

Elsevier2017

A monitoring system for determination of real deck slab behaviour in prestressed box girder bridges

Eugen Brühwiler, Mark Anthony Treacy

Due to ever increasing traffic demands the fatigue safety and service life of the bridges of a railway line in Brazil need to be examined. Conventional assessment methods using load models and approaches as suggested in codes lead to conservative results resulting in significant strengthening interventions. Due to the important direct and indirect costs of the intervention, more detailed examination methods based on data as obtained from monitoring is suggested. This paper reports on an ongoing study to examine the fatigue safety of one standard bridge type, i.e. riveted steel truss structure. First resultsDeck slabs of road bridges are particularly exposed to high numbers of fatigue inducing stresses. It can be difficult to accurately model their service behaviour as secondary elements such as parapets, kerbs and surfacing layers reduce the stress levels in the steel reinforcement bars. Changes in material properties over time and thermal variations further complicate the process. For these reasons a monitoring regime is favoured for the accurate determination of real ‘action effects’ within the bridge elements. This paper presents a 1960’s prestressed concrete motorway bridge in Switzerland which is instrumented with a remotely accessible structural health monitoring (SHM) system. The key focus of the study is on the direct measurement of strains in reinforcement bars to provide a better understanding of the real structural behaviour of such bridges. The system is used to show the signature of an extreme vehicle crossing event as strain and vibrational response in the structural elements. show that all bridge members are safe under the various limit states. The level of stress ranges found in the truss members due to fatigue loading are low such that only two members experience fatigue damage. The bridge structure has thus significant reserves in capacity which makes a future increase in axle loads feasible.

CRC Press/Balkema2012

A monitoring system for determination of real deck slab behaviour in prestressed box girder bridges

Eugen Brühwiler, Mark Anthony Treacy

CRC Press/Balkema2012