Prof. Dr. Matthias Faes Delivers a Semi-Plenary Keynote Lecture at ICOSSAR 2025

The 14th International Conference on Structural Safety & Reliability (ICOSSAR 2025) was hosted by University of Southern California. The event took place from June 1st to June 6th in Los Angeles. Prof. Dr. Matthias Faes, Head of the Chair for Reliability Engineering represented the Chair and delivered a semi-plenary lecture.

ICOSSAR is a prestigious international conference with a long-standing tradition of excellence in the fields of structural safety, risk, and reliability. The conference brings together global experts to discuss state-of-the-art developments in probabilistic modeling, uncertainty quantification, and decision-making under uncertainty. With a strong interdisciplinary focus, ICOSSAR provides a platform for advancing robust and reliable engineering solutions across diverse domains.

Prof. Dr. Faes’ semi-plenary lecture, titled "Efficient Robust Reliability Analysis: Decision Making Under Incomplete Knowledge", addressed the persistent challenge of aligning numerical simulation results with the true physical behavior of engineering systems. While computational tools have become indispensable in modern design processes, their predictions often diverge from observed outcomes due to inherent uncertainties in the model formulation and input parameters. These discrepancies are particularly pronounced in structural dynamics, where dynamic loads such as earthquakes or wind are complex, variable, and difficult to characterize precisely.

In his presentation, Prof. Dr. Faes discussed the limitations of conventional probabilistic approaches when dealing with epistemic uncertainty, which arises from incomplete, sparse, or conflicting data. He emphasized the need for methods that balance computational efficiency with robustness, particularly in settings where fully detailed reliability analysis is infeasible.

Conference details sourced from https://www.icossar2025.org/plenary-and-semi-plenary-speakers