ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT This paper outlines a systematic procedure to conduct expert interviews as a useful tool in engineering. In the context of the presented paper, expert interviews are conducted to explore bank revetment deterioration along German inland waterways and thus to develop an integrated maintenance process. Using the example of loose riprap embankments, this method is applied to substantiate research questions and to design a full-scale model for long-term damage analysis.
To enable a life-cycle-based maintenance of existing structures such as bank revetment – maybe by now technically obsolescent – along German waterways, stability analysis should inlcude deterioration processes close to observations in nature. Initial conditions like damage and boundary conditions such as traffic and available maintenance options differ strongly between various structures and locations. Yet, it is necessary to identify the most significant failure mechanisms in nature, to classify their impact on damage and to establish standardized, risk-based limit state functions. While large-scale models can provide reliable results, they also imply simplifications, are expensive, time-consuming and hence can only be carried out selectively e.g. for certain failure mechanisms and with additional information like observed hydraulic loads.
In engineering practice nowadays, expert judgements are widely accepted if systematic long-term observations are not available. Thus, so-called guided expert interviews have been conducted by researchers of the Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute (BAW). As a scientific method originating from human sciences, expert interviews are used to collect qualitative data. The systematic procedure of expert interviews, applied to long-term damage analysis of loose riprap embankments, and its scope of application will be discussed using already conducted interviews.
The results of the expert interviews will be evaluated and their contribution to the research project discussed. Based on results of the expert interviews, a full-scale embankment model was built in a wave basin that allows observing degradation caused by hydraulic loads after initial damage. It will be explained how the knowledge gained by expert interviews was used to design the physical model.
