Modeling Spatial and Functional Interdependencies of Civil Infrastructure Networks: Fid-Bau Portal

Modeling Spatial and Functional Interdependencies of Civil Infrastructure Networks

Atef, Ahmed / Moselhi, Osama

Asset management targets the sustainability of civil infrastructure throughout combining engineering and economic principles to meet customers' needs and avoid likely catastrophic failures. In the past decade, researchers commonly focused on developing techniques for understanding and controlling the performance of isolated infrastructure networks by using various simulations and statistical and optimization techniques. However, the developed models overlooked the spatial and functional interdependencies between various civil infrastructure. For instance, consider failure in a water main, the structural and functional capacity of the spatially interdependent road may likely be compromised thus affecting other surrounding roads' functionality. This raises the call for developing integrated asset management tools for identifying interdependent assets and capturing to which extent one asset failure can affect neighboring assets' performance. This paper provides a framework for capturing spatially and functionally interdependent assets that consists of two models: 1) a spatial interdependency model and 2) a functional interdependency model. The spatial interdependency model utilizes ArcGIS geoprocessing tools in determining geographically interdependent assets. The spatial interdependency model encapsulates the interdependent assets in a set of new layers and a new generated database containing characteristics of such interdependencies. However, the functional interdependency model employs graph theory principles in determining an asset's degree of connectivity with its neighboring assets. The functional model will aid in recognizing the likely influence of an asset failure on its neighboring assets' performance using two proposed parameters: 1) neighborhood centrality and 2) significant point variance. A case study using City of London water and road network will be used to demonstrate the potential for applying the proposed framework.