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Advances in Concrete Construction
  Volume 1, Number 1, March 2013 , pages 85-102
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/acc.2013.1.1.085
 

Numerical Bayesian updating of prior distributions for concrete strength properties considering conformity control
Robby Caspeele and Luc Taerwe

 
Abstract
    Prior concrete strength distributions can be updated by using direct information from test results as well as by taking into account indirect information due to conformity control. Due to the filtering effect of conformity control, the distribution of the material property in the accepted inspected lots will have lower fraction defectives in comparison to the distribution of the entire production (before or without inspection). A methodology is presented to quantify this influence in a Bayesian framework based on prior knowledge with respect to the hyperparameters of concrete strength distributions. An algorithm is presented in order to update prior distributions through numerical integration, taking into account the operating characteristic of the applied conformity criteria, calculated based on Monte Carlo simulations. Different examples are given to derive suitable hyperparameters for incoming strength distributions of concrete offered for conformity assessment, using updated available prior information, maximum-likelihood estimators or a bootstrap procedure. Furthermore, the updating procedure based on direct as well as indirect information obtained by conformity assessment is illustrated and used to quantify the filtering effect of conformity criteria on concrete strength distributions in case of a specific set of conformity criteria.
 
Key Words
    Bayesian updating; concrete strength; conformity control; EN 206-1; operating characteristic; prior information
 
Address
Robby Caspeele and Luc Taerwe: Magnel Laboratory for Concrete Research, Department of Structural Engineering, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
 
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