Discussion on Paper 10

P. LACEY (Ove Arup & Partners) Chairman's Introduction to Session 5 In 1977 at the Isle of Wight symposium on ruhblemound breakwaters very little was said about risk and risk analysis apart from a paper by Dupuy & Brennan which caused a stir by discussing design risk fixing by the client, and one by Per Bruun & Gunbak who looked at risk criteria in the design stability of sloping structures. Now some six years and several failures later, there is still considerable more attention being paid to risk. The client and design team have to address themselves to risk that data is inadequate, risk that interpretation of it is suspect, risk that tests are not realistic and risk that construction is not up to standard. It is interesting that Mr Baird (Paper 9) has reinvented the Rennie method>as I feel our greed and that of our clients has led us to increase slope steepness beyond our technology and therefore we are at risk.