Seminar Series on System Reliability, Risk and Resilience

Winter Seminar

Francesco Di Maio
IEEE Reliability Chapter (Chair) – Italy Section

Politecnico di Milano
Wednesday 19, December, 2018

On 19th December 2018, at Politecnico di Milano the winter edition of the Seminar series on system reliability, risk and resilience was held. The event (supported by IEEE Reliability Society, the European Safety and Reliability Association (ESRA), Center for Reliability and Safety of Critical Infrastructures (CRESCI, China), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and ARAMIS Srl) consisted of a lecture held by Prof. Enrico Zio (Politecnico di Milano – Energy Department, MINES ParisTech / PSL Université Paris, Centre de Recherche sur les Risques et les Crises (CRC), Kyung Hee University – Department of Nuclear Engineering, Eminent Scholar). In the lecture, has been exploring the future of risk assessment, claiming that it must evolve for addressing the existing and future challenges, and considering the new systems and innovations that have already arrived in our lives and that are coming ahead. Indeed, the rapid changes and innovations that the world that we live in is experiencing pose new challenges to the field of risk assessment. Digitalization brings opportunities but with it comes also the complexity of cyber-physical systems. Climate change and extreme natural events are increasingly threatening our infrastructures; terrorist and malevolent threats are posing severe concerns for the security of our systems and lives. These sources of hazard are extremely uncertain and, thus, difficult to describe and model quantitatively.

In the seminar, Prof. Zio presented some research and development directions that are emerging, particularly thanks to the ever increasing computational capabilities and data availability. These include the use of simulation for accident scenario identification and exploration, the extension of risk assessment into the framework of resilience and business continuity, the reliance on data for dynamic and condition monitoring-based risk assessment, the safety and security assessment of cyber-physical systems.

The success of the seminar has encouraged planning a “Summer Edition” of the Seminar series on system reliability, risk and resilience, to be held in June 2019 in Politecnico di Milano (Italy).