FMGM 2007: Seventh International Symposium on Field Measurements in Geomechanics

2007 ASCE

Why Monitor Performance? W. Allen Marr, P.E., PhD, ASCE Fellow

President and CEO, Geocomp Corporation 1145 Massachusetts Ave., Boxborough, MA, USA, 01719. wam@geocomp.com.

ABSTRACT
This paper provides an overview of the many potential benefits of an effective performance monitoring program for constructed facilities. It also outlines some specific methodologies to quantify these benefits in ways that non-specialists can understand and use. These include quantifying the benefits of monitoring and comparing them to the cost of monitoring. A case is described where the benefits of performance monitoring exceeded the cost by more than eight times. Another example shows that performance monitoring decreased the probability of failure by 40-fold. The goal of the paper is to provide others with the means to better define and quantify the benefits of proposed performance monitoring programs to other members of the Project Team so that effective monitoring can be performed throughout the project life.

INTRODUCTION Many geotechnical engineers have experienced the benefits of using geotechnical instrumentation to monitor structural performance somewhere in his or her career. However, many of us struggle to justify the expense of geotechnical instrumentation to our clients. The purpose of this paper is to provide a resource to help define and quantify the benefits of a geotechnical instrumentation program for a project. Construction of transportation facilities must deal with many unknowns and limited data. This is especially true for those projects in urban areas that involved construction on or in soil and rock. We are working in materials with properties that can change instantly and significantly from one point to the next. These changes may result from the actions of nature in laying down the earth, from prior activities of man on the site, or from actions of the contractor as he works with the site. Further complications may come from uncertainties in the loads that the new facility must withstand during construction and operation. These various uncertainties combine to produce substantial uncertainty in how the completed facility will perform throughout its life. Compounding the importance of these uncertain conditions are the potential large consequences of unexpected performance by the facility. Unexpected performance may adversely impact the project, neighboring structures and utilities, and people.

FMGM 2007: Seventh International Symposium on Field Measurements in Geomechanics

2007 ASCE

Unexpected performance may delay the project, increase its cost, and lead to lengthy and expensive litigations. Urban work amplifies these issues because there are more structures within the potential influence zone, urban structures tend to be more significant, there are more people to be impacted, the population tends to be less tolerant, and more unknowns exist due to previous activities at the site. Additionally, one may be working in and around existing structures that must stay in operation or joining new construction to existing facilities and completed sections of the work. Monitoring provides us with quantitative information on actual performance. We compare the measured performance with the predicted or expected performance. Differences indicate the effects of uncertainties in our design. We need to evaluate those differences to determine what they indicate for future performance. If the anticipated future performance is unacceptable, we look for changes, modifications, and remediation that can be made to alter the future performance. During design we have data that represent an indication of the true state of nature. We use our knowledge and judgment to combine these data with models to predict ultimate performance. If the predicted ultimate performance is unacceptable the Engineer alters the design. Traditional design treated predictions as discrete values but in fact every prediction has uncertainty. Measured performance is natures indication of the true condition. Measured performance reduces the range of uncertainty caused by all the unknowns present during design. Traditional approaches attributed unexpected performance to an act of god; this defense has become increasingly useless as lawyers and experts seek relief for those who are allegedly damaged. More recently the blame has shifted to acts of the contractor or acts of the design professional. By measuring performance and taking action, the goal is to reduce unexpected performance and take the blame game out of the project equation. BENEFITS OF PERFORMANCE MONITORING Geotechnical instrumentation programs are used to save lives, save money and/or reduce risks by giving advanced notice of unexpected, undesirable performance. In concept, these are simple and easy to understand benefits. In practice, they may be benefits that are difficult to quantify or substantiate. Table No.1 summarizes the principle technical reasons one might recommend a geotechnical instrumentation program for a project. Dunnicliff (1988, 1993) discusses some of these points. Each of these is discussed below in the context of todays practice of geotechnical engineering. In this paper, geotechnical instrumentation program is used to describe the complete effort required to obtain an effective instrumentation program. This complete effort includes planning the program, specifying the instruments, procuring

FMGM 2007: Seventh International Symposium on Field Measurements in Geomechanics

2007 ASCE

the hardware, collecting data, interpreting results, preparing reports and acting on the conclusions. Indicate Impending Failure Geotechnical facilities can fail with catastrophic consequences to life and property. Such failures may be the result of excessive loads, design errors, construction deficiencies, unknown or different conditions, deterioration, operational errors or intentional action. Geotechnical instrumentation has been widely used to detect the onset of failure in dams, slopes, embankments and excavations. Such monitoring may have different purposes. It may be to issue a warning to evacuate people and move equipment. It may be to initiate action to forestall the failure. It may provide feedback when causing an Table No. 1: Reasons to Monitor Performance intentional failure, such as for a mining operation or a field test. 1. Indicate impending failure. Geotechnical instrumentation programs may save lives by giving advanced warning in time for people to get to a safe area. A good instrumentation program may reveal an unknown condition early enough that changes can be made that greatly reduce the risk of failure. Instrumentation can save money and reduce risk by decreasing the likelihood of an unexpected failure that destroys or delays the project. Provide a Warning Geotechnical instrumentation systems can warn that some indicator of performance is exceeding acceptable limits. These instruments may be made a part of an automated system that automatically initiates the warning. A tiltmeter can warn of a sudden movement across an existing shear zone. A piezometer can warn of excessive pore pressures in the downstream toe area of a dam that might become unstable and threaten the stability of the dam. Flow meters might warn of significant changes in the volume of flow. In these cases, the geotechnical instruments are a vital part of a warning system that is used to get people out of harms way or initiate preemptive actions to avoid an undesirable event. The instrumentation saves money by reducing the risk of a loss of life and/or property, or by reducing delays.
2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. Provide a warning. Reveal unknowns. Evaluate critical design assumptions. Assess contractors means and methods. Minimize damage to adjacent structures. Control Construction. Control Operations. Devise remedial measures to fix problems. Improve performance. Advance state-of-knowledge. Document performance for assessing damages. Inform stakeholders. Satisfy regulators. Reduce litigation. Show that everything is OK.

FMGM 2007: Seventh International Symposium on Field Measurements in Geomechanics

2007 ASCE

Reveal Unknowns Geotechnical engineers constantly work with unknowns. Sometimes these unknowns can cause a catastrophic failure that destroys the entire project, takes lives, or ruins careers. Other times they cause delays, which increasingly lead to expensive claims for Differing Site Conditions. The foundations of the geotechnical discipline were built on the use of field measurements to reveal unknowns during construction and head off disaster. The work of Terzaghi and Peck in Chicago to measure the forces on excavation support systems is a classic example. In fact, one might argue that the driving force that leads to the development of most of the instrumentation we use today was a need to measure something to reveal unknowns. Generally speaking, geotechnical engineers cannot control the materials in which they work. Nature created those materials in random processes that produced nonuniform and highly variable conditions. A seam of weak material, a zone of high compressibility, or a pocket of high pore water pressure may go undetected in the exploration work and not be considered in the design. Yet, these hard-to-detect details may become the primary cause of undesirable performance. There will always be uncertainty in geotechnical work. As a result, geotechnical engineers cannot accurately predict the performance for their designs. Society cannot afford very conservative designs to minimize the potential effects of these uncertainties; nor will society accept the risks from large uncertainties. Where the consequence of these unknowns might threaten the success of a project, we instrument to measure the actual performance of our design. We use the measurements to identify potential undesirable outcomes, including failure, and make plans to take preemptive action early. The measurements help us answer questions and reduce uncertainty. Terzaghi was a strong advocate of this approach. Peck (1969) defined and illustrated its use as the Observational Method, a concept used in underground construction world-wide. Data from geotechnical instrumentation are valuable in assessing Differing Site Condition claims that result from unknown conditions. Data from a good geotechnical instrumentation program may help prove the existence or absence of a DSC and lead to an equitable arrangement between the Contractor and the Owner. Without such data, proponents are left to argue opinions without supporting facts leading on considerable expense and unpredictable outcomes for both sides of a DSC dispute.

FMGM 2007: Seventh International Symposium on Field Measurements in Geomechanics

2007 ASCE

In my own experience the lowest overall cost to a project from unknown conditions is to use procedures which reveal those unknown conditions as early as possible and engage remedial work as soon as possible. A good geotechnical instrumentation program is vital to this approach. The alternative of delay, denial, and blame almost always costs more. Added costs come from the expenses incurred to determine who pays the added cost. Evaluate Critical Design Assumptions Usually we cannot justify the expense of investigations and studies required to remove all uncertainty about the conditions and parameters that affect geotechnical design. We make simplifying assumptions about ground conditions and choose conservative parameters to prepare a design. If these assumptions could be wrong and the consequences would be unacceptable, we may use geotechnical instrumentation to gather data with which to evaluate our critical assumptions. For this approach to work effectively, we need a design that can be altered if the instrumentation shows our assumptions to be wrong. We might for example assume that a sand layer at the middle of a clay deposit will provide drainage to hasten consolidation of the clay under the weight of a new embankment. If our assumption is wrong, the project could be delayed by years. A single piezometer placed in the sand layer beneath the fill would tell us how good our assumption was early enough to take corrective action and minimize adverse consequences. Instrumentation saves money by permitting the designer to choose cost effective solutions with reasonable design assumptions and avoid expensive conservatism. Data from the instrumentation are used to prove that actual behavior is within the limits permissible for the design, or that actual behavior is different than anticipated and further consideration is warranted. Assess Contractors Means and Methods The outcome of some geotechnical projects depends on the means and methods of the contractor. The job requirements may be in the form of a performance specification where the contractor is required to provide the design and complete the work. Maintaining the stability of the bottom of a deep excavation against uplift is one example. The specifications might require that the contractor maintain a minimum factor of safety against bottom heave due to uplift of at least 1.1. Piezometers installed to measure pore water pressures beneath the excavation would indicate whether the contractor is meeting this important requirement.

FMGM 2007: Seventh International Symposium on Field Measurements in Geomechanics

2007 ASCE

Geotechnical instrumentation is used to determine whether the contractors means and methods meet the specified performance requirements. A good instrumentation program can provide sufficient data of the right type to show the potential for undesirable performance early in the work. Data from the instrumentation may show why the contractors means and methods are not working. The means and methods can then be adjusted to reduce their impact on the project. Instrumentation saves money by helping to reduce the consequences of undesirable performance. Data from the instrumentation may also help identify ineffective or inefficient aspects of the contractors means or methods. Minimize Damage to Adjacent Structures Underground construction can have adverse consequences that reach beyond the project boundary. These consequences may affect adjacent property with undesirable results. Expensive repairs, bad relations and protracted litigation can result. Movement of the ground outside a supported excavation is one example. The specifications might require the contractor to provide an excavation support system that limits horizontal and vertical movements outside the excavation to less than 1 inch so that adjacent structures are not damaged by the work. Geotechnical instrumentation to measure vertical and horizontal movement outside the support system is used to determine whether the contractor meets this requirement. Instrumentation saves money by providing data on performance of adjacent facilities early enough that damage to those facilities can be avoided or minimized by changing the construction operations. In doing so, we save the costs to fix the actual damages. In addition, we may avoid or greatly reduce the costs that come from inflated claims and protracted litigation resulting from the damages. Such savings can be of great significance, especially in urban areas. Control Construction Instrumentation may be used to monitor the progress of geotechnical performance to control a construction activity. For example, an embankment might be placed over a soft soil stratum by constructing it in stages. Placed all at once, the embankment would cause a foundation failure. Placing the embankment in stages with time between each stage allows the soft soil to strengthen by consolidation between each stage. Instruments to measure movements and pore water pressures could be used to determine when enough consolidation of the clay has occurred that the next stage of fill can be safely added. A delicate balance may be sought between adding the next stage as quickly as possible to minimize construction time but not so quickly that a stability failure is created. Other examples include using instrumentation to determine how deep to drive piles to attain a required capacity, controlling the excavation and supporting sequence for a deep excavation, controlling the advance rate for soft ground tunneling, and controlling the sequence for compaction grouting.

FMGM 2007: Seventh International Symposium on Field Measurements in Geomechanics

2007 ASCE

Instrumentation saves money by helping us determine the fastest and most expeditious way to proceed with construction without creating undesirable performance. Having data from instrumentation may permit more economical design approaches, such as staged construction instead of other means of ground improvement. Control Operations Geotechnical instrumentation may be used to help control the operation of a facility. The rate of drawdown of a reservoir for a pump-storage power facility might be tied to readings of pore pressure in the embankment dam or side slopes to avoid stability failures due to draw down. Readings from piezometers might be used to control the amount of ore that can be safely stockpiled over a soft foundation. In these situations, data from the instrumentation permit the operations of the facility to be pushed closer to their limits without causing a failure. As a result, the owner realizes an economic gain from the higher utilization or more efficient operation of the facility. Devise Remedial Methods to Fix Problems Things sometimes go wrong in geotechnical construction that must be fixed. Finding the best fix requires understanding what went wrong. Data from geotechnical instrumentation can help one figure out what caused the problem. Then one can devise a remedial action that addresses the specific cause rather than masks the symptoms. Instrumentation saves money by helping us tailor the remedy to the specific cause of the problem. Otherwise we may face repeated efforts of trial and error actions until something finally works. Improve Performance Modern concepts of business management stress continual improvement and the need for measurements to gage success. A common saw in business practice is that which is measured improves, while things not measured eventually fail. The mere process of measuring performance coupled with normal human behavior leads to improved performance. The underground construction industry is searching for ways to improve their operations to produce facilities that perform better and cost less. Like other business processes, improvement can only be assessed by measurement. Geotechnical instrumentation systems can play a central role in providing these measurements. This is especially the case for projects that use performance-based specifications. Future contracts may reward contractors and engineers for good performance and penalized them for poor performance of the completed facility. A good instrumentation system will be a central part of determining the quality of the work.

FMGM 2007: Seventh International Symposium on Field Measurements in Geomechanics

2007 ASCE

Advance State-of-Knowledge Many of the advances in the theories of geotechnical engineering have their roots in data from geotechnical instrumentation on full-scale projects. The data give us insight into how things are performing and causal relationships. Historically, a significant amount of geotechnical instrumentation was performed as part of a research effort to improve our state of knowledge. Much of this was paid for by governmental agencies with a mission to improve practice. Instrumentation to improve the state of knowledge saves money by leading to improvements in our design and construction methods. On some projects, instrumentation of the early phases of the job may lead to an improved understanding of site conditions and geotechnical performance such that the design and/or construction methods can be altered to reduce costs and risks on later phases of the project. Manufacturers of specialty materials may instrument projects to demonstrate the performance advantages of their products for future projects or to find ways to improve their product for future applications. Document Performance for Assessing Damages Claims for damages by third parties represent one of the substantial risks encountered in geotechnical projects. Some claims may include charges for damages unrelated to the construction. Others may be inflated, such as a claim for structural damage when only minor architectural damage has occurred. Data from geotechnical instrumentation can help establish the validity of such claims. For example, if the instrumentation shows that an adjacent building has not moved during construction, it becomes more difficult for the owner to claim that cracks in the building resulted from the construction activity. Instrumentation saves money by helping to identify bogus or inflated claims. It may also indicate the potential severity of any damages so that a fair settlement can be established. The mere presence of data from geotechnical instrumentation may help discourage the filing of frivolous claims. Some insurance companies have started to use the data from geotechnical instrumentation programs to help them determine whether to settle a claim and for how much. As we undertake more demanding projects in developed areas and litigation grows more sophisticated, I anticipate geotechnical instrumentation to experience more widespread use to help limit and settle damage claims.

FMGM 2007: Seventh International Symposium on Field Measurements in Geomechanics

2007 ASCE

Inform Stakeholders Construction in developed areas may affect numerous parties, all of who seek a role in controlling the adverse impacts of the project. People tend to anticipate the worst outcomes and fear construction impacts. Data from geotechnical instrumentation can provide solid evidence of the true construction impacts. It can provide powerful responses to the questions and fears of stakeholders. A good example of this is peoples sensitivity to construction-induced vibrations. People inside buildings may become concerned with the level of vibrations caused by nearby pile driving. Humans typically sense the presence of vibrations at a level less than 10% of those that begin to cause minor architectural damage to the building. Building owners may become concerned for the safety of their building when they sense these relatively low level vibrations. Data from a good geotechnical instrumentation program can demonstrate to these people that the vibration levels are well below those that might cause damage. Alternatively, the measurements may show vibrations that approach unacceptable levels so construction methods can be changed before damage occurs. Instrumentation saves money by keeping stakeholders informed of the actual situation. This reduces the potential for bad relations, costly disputes and work stoppages. Satisfy Regulators Some facilities must be instrumented to meet the requirements of specific regulations. For example, some states require piezometers be installed in all earthen dams over a specified height. Some cities require seismographs be installed in tall buildings to record earthquake response. In these cases the governmental agencies have determined that a public good is served by requiring an instrumentation program. The instrumentation may be required to help protect public safety, or it may be required to provide data with which to improve the state of knowledge about a particular problem. It is not always easy to see how instrumentation saves money when installed to meet a regulatory requirement. For the specific project, it may not save money, especially if the only reason the equipment was installed was to satisfy the regulatory requirements. Unfortunately, many of those involved see such instrumentation only as an added cost. With the instrumentation properly installed and the data carefully collected and evaluated, it can become a valuable resource in maintaining and rehabilitating the facility at some later time. Reduce Litigation Data from geotechnical instrumentation can be a powerful deterrent to litigation. Contractors may claim differing site conditions. Abutters may claim for damages caused by construction. Owners may claim poor performance of the completed

FMGM 2007: Seventh International Symposium on Field Measurements in Geomechanics

2007 ASCE

facility. Where subsurface conditions are involved, data from a good geotechnical instrumentation program may provide powerful evidence to help get to a fair resolution of such claims. I have been involved in a number of cases where the entire basis for a differing site condition claim could have been refuted if only a few key measurements had been taken during construction. A common claim is that excessive water was encountered due to a differing site condition. Unfortunately, measurements of actual quantities of flow, or the flow conditions in the vicinity of the contested region are rarely taken. A few key measurements could quickly establish the validity of the contractors claim. Instrumentation has the potential to save considerable money in reducing the frequency of litigation and the size of the claims. Good geotechnical instrumentation programs may reduce unexpected performance and thereby avoid the cause of the dispute. The instrumentation may reveal the presence of a differing site condition and permit the construction operations to be altered to minimize the impact of the change and result in a smaller claim. Data from the instrumentation may help establish the actual impacts of differing site conditions or adverse performance so that an equitable adjustment can be made fairly and quickly. Im waiting for the corollary to this idea to develop as well, that is the case where someone sues a contractor or engineer for not using geotechnical instrumentation to warn of undesirable performance. Doctors have been sued for not requesting certain diagnostic tests or collecting certain data when the methods for making such measurements were readily available. Considering the parallels between medical and engineering practice, how long can it be before a similar concept is applied to sue an engineer for failing to require instrumentation to identify and avoid undesirable performance? Show That Everything is OK. Increasingly we use instrumentation programs to demonstrate the actual performance is within the bounds anticipated by the designers. The presumption is there will be no surprises or unexpected consequences to cost and schedule, and that unexpected behavior can be identified early enough to maintain control of the project cost and schedule. In this use, data from an instrumentation programs helps maintain the various parties confidence in the performance of the work and frees them to focus on other issues. I find more clients desiring performance monitoring systems that are comprehensive and robust but with instant reporting as simple as a green light to indicate that everything is in an acceptable state. QUANTIFYING BENEFITS OF GEOTECHNICAL INSTRUMENTATION To this point, the paper has discussed the engineering reasons for why we monitor performance. These are the talking points in engineer-to-engineer exchanges. Theyre the language we put into proposals and demonstrate in publications. But
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theyre not the language of business. Theyre not the language of most owners or contractors, or designers, or regulators. They can read and understand the rationale outlined above but they have trouble translating the words into perceived benefits that give them value. This section provides an approximate method to quantity these benefits. While the suggested method is not precise, it is generally sufficient to decide how much of an instrumentation program is worthwhile for many situations. The suggested method is based on concepts of decision theory and risk analysis. Decision theory provides a framework for managers to make decisions when faced with incomplete and uncertain information. It uses probabilistic analyses to estimate likely outcomes. Decisions are based on the desirable outcomes with the highest likelihood of success or lowest chance of failure. Most graduate level business programs teach decision theory as a recognized decision making tool. Risk analysis embodies a wide range of scientific theory and engineering analyses to identify potential sources of risk, determine the probability of each source, and estimate the consequences from each source of risk. Total risk is the summation of the probability of each source of risk occurring times the consequences of that occurrence. Risk can be decreased by actions that reduce the probability of a source of risk occurring or reduce the consequence of that event occurring. As an example, consider two dams of similar construction in a similar setting. Both dams might have the same probability of failure. But suppose Dam A is located 10 miles upstream of a major city sited on the banks of the river and Dam B outlets directly to the ocean 10 miles away. Clearly Dam A poses a much higher risk than Dam B even though they have a similar probability of failure. Dam B could have an even higher probability of failure than Dam A; yet pose less overall risk. However, risk is in the wallet of its recipient. While failure of Dam B might present much less societal risk, its risk of failure might still be unbearable to its shareholders who would suffer from the physical loss of the facility. Risk analysis provides input for decisions using decision theory. A manager may choose a course that minimizes risk, or the manager may choose a course in which the benefits achieved by lowering risk outweigh the costs of achieving that reduction. In its simplest form, the approach outlined here to help quantify the benefits of instrumentation is as follows: 1. Determine all ways by which the project can fail or experience undesirable performance from a geotechnical cause. 2. Estimate the probability of occurrence of each of these events during the period of interest, Pi. 3. Define the consequences of each event and estimate the potential cost of each consequence, Ci. 4. Estimate the reduction in probability of occurrence of each event that a geotechnical instrumentation program could produce, Pi.

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5. Determine the expected reduction in risk produced by instrumentation by computing the sum of the reduction on probability of occurrence of each event times the cost the consequence of that event, RR = (Pi * Ci). 6. Use instrumentation as long as the cost is less than the estimated reduction in risk, RR. As described above, geotechnical instrumentation can be used to help reduce risks, minimize damages and avoid delays. Each of these elements can be assigned a cost. Consequences may include added construction costs, damages to adjacent facilities, delays, litigation, etc. While formal methods exist to quantify risk, usually they are to complex to apply in decision making about geotechnical instrumentation. One approach is to use approximate subjective estimates of risk. In this approach one seeks to identify all significant undesirable outcomes and estimate the likelihood of their occurrence. It is helpful to simplify the likelihood of occurrence to a few possible states that are defined sufficiently to give useful results but simply enough to avoid unnecessary complication. Table No.2 gives an example of one set of risk states that is sufficient for most evaluations of geotechnical instrumentation. The values in Table No.2 represent the authors own interpretation of what numerical probabilities to assign to subjective adjectives in the context of developing geotechnical instrumentation programs. These values are intended only to provide a tool to aid in making approximate assessments of risk. Decisions based on these values should take into account their approximate nature. Table No.2: Risk Classification Scheme LIKELIHOOD Zero, none, impossible Virtually impossible, very unlikely Unlikely, improbable, barely possible Small, limited, marginal Moderate, considerable, somewhat unlikely Likely, probable Highly likely, very probable PROBABILITY OF RISK OCCURRENCE PROBABILITY <0.0001 0.01% 0.00011 to 0.001 0.0011 to 0.01 0.011 to 0.1 0.11 to 0.5 0.51 to 0.9 >0.9 0.1% 1% 10% 50% 90% 100%

Engineers seem to be able to use adjectives to describe their judgment about how much uncertainty exists in their design. Table No.2 assigns probability ranges to some of the more common adjectives used to describe uncertainty or risk. To simplify risk calculations, the ranges given in Table No.2 for probability of

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Fig. 1: Failure Modes for Deep Excavation

occurrence are rounded to the highest value associated with each group of descriptive adjectives. These simplified probability states are sufficient to produce reasonable estimates of risk cost for most geotechnical instrumentation applications. Of course, this simplified procedure can always be replaced with a more rigorous risk assessment if the project conditions justify the extra expense. It is easiest to illustrate how to proceed with an example. Figure 1 shows a proposed 14 m (45-ft) deep excavation in the center of a city. Several historic buildings 4 to 8 floors high are founded on shallow foundations just outside the excavation. Excavation support will be a tied-back wall. Table No.3 lists the significant potential adverse consequences associated with making the excavation. If the soils are too weak, we may cause a global stability failure that could collapse one or more of the buildings, severely damage the work and delay the project for 2 years. Shear deformations caused by making the excavation could cause cracking and possible structural damage to the adjacent buildings. Dewatering of the excavation might produce dewatering outside of the excavation and result in consolidation settlements of buildings, streets and utilities. Loss of ground due to water flowing and carrying soil into the excavation might cause sinkholes that undermine and damage significant utilities buried in the street just beyond the excavation. Other consequences are possible, but the design engineers consider these the ones of most importance and consequence.

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FMGM 2007: Seventh International Symposium on Field Measurements in Geomechanics

Table 3: Potential Adverse Consequences from Deep Excavation

2007 ASCE

Undesirable outcome Global stability failure Excessive Deformation from shear Excessive Deformation from dewatering Ground loss from flow into excavation

Likelihood 0.03 Likely Unlikely Small

Consequence $50,000,000 to fix and 2 year delay, possible loss of life $400,000 to fix $200,000 to fix $500,000 to repair

The middle column of Table No.3 gives the design engineers subjective estimate of the likelihood of the undesirable outcome occurring during the life of the project. A factor of safety for global stability of 1.3 was computed using strengths estimated from SPT data. These conditions indicate a Lambe-Silva-Marr Engineering Level III condition (Silva, et. al., 2007). The corresponding probability of failure is 0.03. To complete the evaluation, we need to assign monetary values to all consequences. As an example, additional study shows a small probability of a global stability failure that could involve a catastrophic collapse of the adjoining building with consequential estimated costs of $50,000,000 from total loss of the building, damage to the project and delays. Combining this information with the information in Tables No. 2 and No. 3 leads to Table No. 4.
Table No.4: Potential Risk Costs for Deep Excavation

Outcome Global stability failure Excessive Deformation from shear Excessive Deformation from dewatering Ground loss from flow into excavation

Consequence Probability Risk Cost $50,000,000 to fix and 2 year 0.03 $1,500,000 delay, possible loss of life $400,000 to fix 0.9 $360,000 $200,000 to fix $500,000 to repair 0.01 0.1 $20,000 $50,000

We can use these results to guide our selection of a geotechnical instrumentation program. It is clear that the biggest exposure is with global stability. With additional work, we determine that a geotechnical instrumentation program could provide sufficient warning of an impending global stability failure that we could institute preventative measures, i.e. fill the excavation with soil or water. We believe this approach would reduce the likelihood of a global stability failure from 0.03 to 0.005. This translates to a reduction in Risk Cost from $1,500,000 to $250,000 or reduction of $1,250,000. From a straight decision making perspective, we can argue that we are justified in spending up to $1,250,000 on a geotechnical instrumentation program

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that removes the likelihood of a global stability failure occurring. The same system might help reduce some of the risk cost from excessive deformation due to shear. The risk costs estimated for the other two outcomes are relatively small so it would be difficult to justify much more than visual monitoring and precautionary construction steps to control these two failure modes. This example shows one simplified approach to evaluating how much to spend on a geotechnical instrumentation program. Used consistently over a number of projects, it provides a consistent way to estimate the monetary value of geotechnical instrumentation programs. However, it is not the final answer to any particular project. There may be factors that cause significant undesirable consequences that cannot be easily monetized. Loss of life, political fallout from delays, loss of reputation and bad press are examples that come to mind. Any of these may provide sufficient cause to justify a more extensive geotechnical instrumentation program. It is important to recognize that this approach only provides an organized way to help make rational decisions based on quantified information that contains uncertainty. It does not ensure outcomes. Geotechnical instrumentation by itself does not change the outcome. Placing geotechnical instrumentation in a deep cut to monitor stability does not alter the factor of safety of the cut. It is only through the intelligent use of the data from the geotechnical instrumentation that engineers can better foresee potential outcomes and take appropriate actions to alter the events, or reduce the consequences. Engineers change outcomes and geotechnical instrumentation is one of the tools they use to make effective changes. The approach described above can be made much more complete using principles and tools of probabilistic analysis and decision theory. Complete event trees and fault trees can describe each likely failure scenario in considerable detail. Rigorous activities can be used to establish probabilities. An excellent example of an event tree for the failure of an earthen dam by cracking was provided by R.V. Whitman (Whitman, 1984) in his Terzaghi lecture.

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Professor Whitman laid out an event tree for failure of an earthen dam due to cracking. Figure 2 illustrates his event tree, which included the effects of instrumentation on the probability of failure. He assigned probabilities to various events based on his engineering judgment. His event tree was for the hypothetical case of good, conservative design practice and it included monitoring to detect oncoming failure. It shows an expected lifetime probability of failure of the dam by cracking of 5*10-5.

Figure 2: Whitman's Event Tree for Good, Conservative Design Practice.

This event tree includes two branches where monitoring plays a role: piping detected and high pore pressure detected. In his assessment, good conservative design practice would have a 99% chance of detecting piping and a 100% chance of detecting high pore pressure before they caused failure. These high probabilities imply a comprehensive and vigilant monitoring program. They also provide a way for us to assess what happens to the probability of failure for the dam with a relatively ineffective monitoring program.

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Consider the situation where the design follows good, conservative practice but there is little to no monitoring of construction and operation or the information from the monitoring effort is ignored. This might reduce the chances of detecting piping

Figure 3: Whitmans Event Tree with Ineffective Monitoring

and detecting high pore pressure to less than 10%. Figure 3 shows the event tree with these revised probabilities. The lifetime probability of failure of the dam increases from 5*10-5 to 0.002, a 40-fold increase. Looked at in reverse, an effective monitoring program is reducing the lifetime probability of failure of a good, conservative design by a factor of 40. This quantified benefit from performance monitoring has immediate meaning to most owners. Provided the consequences of failure are significant and understood, a 40 fold reduction in risk is a major improvement. In my experience, effective monitoring programs can reduce the risk of undesirable performance by at least one order of magnitude in most situations. CASE HISTORY ILLUSTRATING BENEFITS OF MONITORING It would be extremely helpful to the instrumentation community to have documented cases that demonstrate the benefits of performance monitoring where those benefits are explicitly defined and quantified. Unfortunately, the benefits can be difficult to quantify and people are reluctant to do the extra required work. I

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sought to do this on the large Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T Project) in Boston. The Central Artery/Tunnel Project is the largest, most complex highway project in American history. The $15 billion project consists of 161 lane miles of urban highway about half underground in a 7.5-mile corridor through the heart of one of America's oldest and most historic cities. The main portion of the Project replaced Boston's aging, elevated Central Artery (I-93) with a modern eight-to-ten lane underground expressway. The Project also extended the Massachusetts Turnpike (I90) to Logan Airport, built a dramatic 10-lane cable-stayed bridge across the Charles River, created a state-of-the-art incident response and traffic management system, constructed five major highway interchanges and has the largest vehicular tunnel ventilation system in the world. The work for the CA/T Project was unprecedented, with the majority of the construction taking place in the middle of downtown Boston which houses the main financial and historical areas that must remain open and accessible for businesses, residents and tourists. More than 150 significant structures exist within the potential construction impact zone of the CA/T Project. These include several high-rise buildings located on mat foundations within tens of feet of proposed deep excavations, many multi-story brick and masonry structures of historic value, major transportation infrastructure, and completed portions of the project. Previous construction experience in Boston had shown that damage to existing structures from new construction could create significant added costs to a project. For example, in the 1980s, the Trinity Church sued the John Hancock Insurance Company for 40 million dollars in damages. They successfully argued that cracking of masonry elements in the historic church was caused by construction of a nearby excavation for the foundation of the John Hancock Building and were awarded $11.6 million (Lambe, 2003) Also, other prior construction experiences in the Boston area had shown that the effects of dewatering for an excavation could extend thousands of feet from the construction (Lambe and Whitman, 1969). The potential for damage to structures adjacent to the CA/T Project was difficult to assess, but an amount of several hundred million dollars to more than a billion dollars in claims and litigation expenses seemed to be reasonable estimates of the possible damages. There was also significant financial risk from the potential for delay claims by General Construction Contractors if litigation related to damage claims halted construction at any point. Potential damages to adjacent structures associated with the CA/T Project construction were anticipated to be very significant if careful steps were not taken to prevent damage. To my knowledge, no attempt was made during the planning phases of the Project to estimate potential damages (note that it is not typical practice to quantify such estimates). The design engineers had the following main concerns for major problems that could have occurred: Collapse of one or more major structures adjacent to the excavations due to a failure of the excavation support system. Examples of major structures
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adjacent to the Project included the 33 floor main tower of the Federal Reserve Bank Building, the 46 floor high rise building at One Financial Center, the historic MBTA South Station and the AMTRAK South Station rail yard system. Major damage to structures due to a failure of the excavation support system resulting in business disruptions lasting for a significant period of time. Architectural damage to the many historic structures along the work alignment due to excessive deformations from excavation or ground water lowering. Claims from contractors for construction delays related to damage to adjacent structures, which resulted in work stoppage and delays. A total collapse of a major building was unlikely to occur, but with the type of construction performed on the CA/T Project, the possibility of a total collapse had to be considered. The consequences of such a disaster are hard to quantify but based on costs of other major disasters, a value of several billion dollars in damage and economic losses is a reasonable estimate. I used $5 billion to represent the average loss that might be anticipated if one of the several major facilities close to the project totally collapsed. This number does not include the potential for loss of hundreds of lives and many injuries. For the CA/T Project it seemed very unlikely that such an event could occur before significant distress was noticed and work was stopped. However, collapses of excavations have been known to occur with little to no warning. Given the number of major structures that could be affected and the extended length of time of the Project, the likelihood of occurrence of a total collapse was estimated to be about 0.03 without a monitoring program in place. This value was determined by using an approximation of the number of significant structures within the construction impact zone whose complete collapse would cause billions of dollars in damage (10) times the average number of years each structure would be exposed to subsurface work (3) times the annual probability of a major structure collapsing due to underground work occurring without monitoring. I estimated this last value to be approximately 0.001 based on his knowledge of the likelihood of a major collapse of a significant structure exposed to excavation close to its foundation without a monitoring program. Based on risk theory, one measure of risk is consequence multiplied by likelihood. Therefore, the risk cost to the Project of a collapse of a major building could be estimated as the value of $5 billion multiplied by 0.03 or about $150,000,000, not including the potential for substantial loss of life and injury. Major damage and disruption to one or more structures would have less consequence than a complete collapse but a higher likelihood of occurrence. I estimated that the potential consequences of major damage to a structure like the MBTA South Station would be in the $700 million range accompanied with some loss of life and injuries. This event is estimated to have a likelihood of one occurrence during the life of the project of about 0.3 without a monitoring program in place. The probability of occurrence of major damage to one significant structure was estimated with the same approach used to obtain the probability of a total

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collapse. I estimated the annual probability of one structure experiencing major damage when exposed to excavation close to its foundation without a monitoring program in place to be about 0.01. Therefore, the risk from major damage and disruption might be on the order of $200,000,000. As previously discussed, the original project designers were very concerned about the potential consequences from architectural and/or structural damage caused by construction. It was very likely that structures along the alignment could be damaged by the construction if careful controls were not applied. I estimated that the potential consequences of architectural and minor structural damage could be in the range of $100,000,000 with a likelihood of almost one without a monitoring program in place. This gives an estimated risk cost of $100,000,000 from architectural and/or structural damage to adjacent structures. Significant damage occurring to multiple structures along the alignment would likely result in a major work stoppage until the business community and public could be convinced that corrective actions were in place to prevent future damage. Unexpected performance within a construction zone could delay a construction contractor and cause delays to adjacent contracts. These events could lead to significant claims from the General Contractors resulting in delays and requests for extensions producing a domino effect of additional claims in other parts of the Project. I estimated the cost of potential construction contractor delay claims from this cause at $500 million and the likelihood as 1% per contract over the project life. There were 18 construction contracts with heavy civil work. Summing over these 18 projects, there is an estimated 20% chance of at least one major work stoppage due to damage if no monitoring occurred. This gives an estimated risk cost of $100 million from construction contractor claims for delays that might result from damage to adjacent structures. Table No. 5 summarizes these estimates. The results of these very approximate estimates give a total risk associated with damages to adjacent structures from construction related ground movements of about $550 million, not including the potential for significant loss of life and injury. There is some evidence to suggest that a good performance monitoring program can decrease geotechnical risk by about one order of magnitude as documented by

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Table 5: Summary of Risk Cost Analysis for CA/T

2007 ASCE

Outcome

Consequence

Collapse Major damage and disruption Construction delays from unexpected performance Architectural to structural damage

$5B $700 M $500 M $100M

Probability of Occurrence without Monitoring .03 0.3 0.2 ~1 Total:

Risk Cost

~$150M ~$200M ~$100M ~$100M $550,000,000

Lambe, Silva-Tulla & Marr (1981). Therefore, a strong performance monitoring program could reduce this estimated risk of $550 million to $55 million, for a reduction in risk cost over the project life of approximately $500 million. A more detailed risk assessment might produce a smaller or a larger estimate but I do not expect the difference to be more than a factor of 2 above or below this estimate (e.g. ranging from $300 million to $1 billion). This simple risk analysis indicates a rough estimate of risk to the Project resulting from damage to adjacent structures and delays from unexpected ground performance, of about $550 million dollars, not including the potential for significant loss of life and injury, but $500 million of this could be removed with a good geotechnical performance monitoring program. Each entry in Table No. 3 involves subjective engineering judgment. Some will argue that any one of these entries is too low while others will argue that they are too high. Each entry is based on the subjective estimate of experienced engineers knowledgeable with the geotechnical aspects of the project and the consequences of underground construction on existing structures. A thorough risk analysis would change every entry in Table No. 5; however I firmly believe that the conclusion drawn from the results in the table will not materially differ. The approximate total cost for instruments, installation, monitoring and evaluation was about $60 million. At the time of substantial completion of the underground work, payments for repairs and damages to adjacent structures total approximately $9 million. There were no major failures from ground movements. Engineers working on the project experienced numerous instances where the monitoring program showed problems and deficiencies in time for corrective action to be taken. My estimate of the monetary benefit to the project from the geotechnical performance monitoring program is about $500 million. The estimated financial benefits from avoiding ground failures, damage to adjacent structures and delays to the Project exceeded the cost of the geotechnical monitoring program by about eight times.

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FUTURE ROLE OF PERFORMANCE MONITORING We must find better ways to convey the benefits and value of performance monitoring to the larger community in concepts and terms they understand. Too many good plans for performance monitoring are reduced or removed at higher decision levels or poorly implemented by disinterested contractors with the task of installing and monitoring instruments. As described and illustrated above, performance monitoring has an important roll on many projects. We must find better ways to educate the project team on the role and benefits of performance monitoring to the success of a project. I believe a promising way to do this is within the context of project risk management. Risk management has become an important element of owners project management agendas over the last decade. Most large projects establish a risk management team during the early phases of the project to explore the best means to identify and manage project risks. Most owners, regulators and contractors understand the basic concepts of risk assessment, risk allocation and risk management well enough to meaningfully communicate among themselves and with their legal and financial partners. From my perspective, the role of performance monitoring of infrastructure is to save owners money. These savings result from the benefits that an effective performance monitoring system can provide. These benefits include avoiding surprise behavior, reducing the likelihood of undesirable performance and providing early warnings of unexpected performance so that remedial actions can be taken to reduce the undesirable consequences. These benefits reduce the potential for delays to the project from unexpected performance. They reduce the possibilities that construction will adversely affect neighboring people and facilities. They also reduce the opportunities for claims arising from unexpected performance. Looked at in a broader perspective, almost all of the reasons given in the first part of this paper for performance monitoring seek to answer questions about uncertain things. We monitor performance because we are uncertain what actual behavior of the site will be. Uncertainty produces risk. Performance monitoring offers the project team a key tool to help monitor and manage risk during the construction process. Uncertainties and large consequences produce risk. Owners and contractors dont like risk. They are increasingly employing ways to manage and reduce risk to control budget and completion time. Figure 4 illustrates the process of risk management. Many of todays so-called risk management programs for infrastructure projects identify and assess risks, then seek to lay them off on someone else, usually the Contractor or the insurer. This is risk allocation and not risk management. In the long run, the Owner pays a higher price through higher insurance premiums and more costly construction. True risk management adds steps to plan strategies that minimize likelihood and control consequences, measure anything that can indicate

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risk, and take action to reduce risk at every opportunity. As illustrated in Figure 4, monitoring is an essential part of any true risk management program. For heavy civil construction, performance monitoring has a central role in risk management. The traditional philosophy of most engineers has been to deal with unknowns and uncertainties by designing with caution and conservatism. The actual risks Fig. 4: Risk Management Process are arbitrarily masked by a factor of safety. Their aim is to get the facility big enough and strong enough that all the uncertainties dont matter. However this tact leads to higher costs for the owner without his knowledge of what those costs are or what they are buying. An alternate approach is to do more investigations and studies in the preconstruction phase to reduce uncertainty and conservatism. At some point, the cost of additional investigations and studies becomes high relative to the reduction in uncertainty obtained with the additional work and some uncertainty remains. Figure 5 illustrates these points in a conceptual diagram. The horizontal axis depicts level of effort expended in investigations and design. As this level increases, the conservatism in the design should decrease leading to lower construction costs. Curve 1 indicates the total of investigation and construction costs. Point A indicates the optimal level of investigation that produces the minimum of investigation and construction costs. The costs under Curve 1 give no consideration to risk costs. Risk costs result from unexpected events and conditions not anticipated in the design that increase the cost of construction, produce delays and/or cause damages to people and property. These costs are higher for low levels of investigation and design because the probability of failure is higher due to the large uncertainty in the information used for design. These costs decrease with increasing level of investigation and design, largely because the uncertainty in predicted performance decreases due to the additional investigation. When we add the possible risk costs to the total cost picture, we get Curve 2. The optimal level of investigation and design increases to Point B. The optimal total cost has increased because we have increased the level of investigation and we have included risk costs; however the optimal total cost is significantly less than at the level of investigation for Point A, if we include risk costs, e.g. Point C. The really interesting observation is what happens when we consider the effect on total cost of performance monitoring. There is some evidence to indicate that an
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effective monitoring program can reduce risk by an order of magnitude (Lambe, Silva and Marr, 1981). This reduction comes from reduced uncertainty in predicted performance and reduced consequences. Curve 3 shows total costs when the costs of a monitoring program are added to investigation, construction and reduced risk costs. The optimal level of investigation shifts to Point D. The optimal level of investigation is Fig. 5: Total Cost Optimization somewhat higher than for the case where we ignore risk costs (Point A), but much less than the case where we include risk costs but do not monitor (Point C). The total costs with effective monitoring (Point D) are significantly less than those without monitoring (Point B). Point D represents true optimization of the design-construction process by employing an appropriate level of investigation and design to remove costly conservatism and using effective monitoring to reduce uncertainty about performance and better control the consequences of unacceptable performance. Risk can be quantified. For a specific event, risk is the likelihood that the event will occur times the consequences of that event. We can manage risk by controlling the likelihood, altering the consequence or doing both. For constructed facilities, the consequences can be quantified in terms of money, lives lost, damage level, etc. Likelihood is more difficult to obtain. It may come from historical data or frequency or failures of similar projects with similar events. It may come from a formal risk assessment where experts identify and characterize all sources of uncertainty and develop a model of the project event to calculate a probability of the event. It may come from expert opinion by which someone very familiar with the specific issues opines on the likelihood that the event will occur or possibly provides a numerical estimate of the probability of the event occurring. The problem is that each of these techniques provides an estimated likelihood of the event that is still uncertain unless the value is 0 it wont occur, or 1 it will definitely occur. Here is where performance monitoring enters. Most significant events that produce risk to construction projects develop over time. They give off
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indicators as they develop that something is happening. This presents the opportunity before the event actually happens for the process to be disrupted and altered so that the probability changes, or precautions can be taken to minimize the consequences. Performance monitoring seeks to monitor these key indicators to detect early warnings before the event happens. With performance monitoring, our aim is to get sufficient warning that we can alter the probability of an event to 0 if the consequences are undesirable, or 1 if the consequences are desirable, or else manage the consequences. Since altering probabilities and consequences consume resources, we only want to intervene when the monitoring system gives indicators that an uncertain event is becoming more likely to happen. To the pure probabilists, performance monitoring provides the factual data set to do Bayesian updating of the probability of an event occurring. Surprising performance can have significant impacts on project cost and schedule, (plus and minus). Performance monitoring can be a useful construction management tool to detect surprise performance sufficiently early to manage its impacts on the project. For performance monitoring to work as an effective component of risk management, the information must be timely, reliable and presented so others can understand what the data mean quickly, correctly and efficiently. By working with a higher level in the project organization charged with construction management, we have a better opportunity to influence the outcome and add more value with the results of performance monitoring. The increasingly important role of performance monitoring to managing risk on a project should make us consider the best delivery method for performance monitoring. There is a strong tendency on infrastructure projects to make performance monitoring a part of the contractors work. In general this is akin to requiring the contractor to do the quality assurance. Most general contractors are not motivated to make performance monitoring systems work. They generally see instruments as things that get in their way and they think that measured performance only brings bad news for them. I believe that performance monitoring should become the responsibility of the construction management team. An effective performance monitoring system provides them with solid facts about the performance of the engineers design, the contractors work, and the effects of site conditions. CONCLUSIONS Geotechnical instrumentation can reduce the undesirable consequences from construction surprises. These consequences may be the result of adverse performance, damage to adjacent facilities, and/or delays. Increasingly, geotechnical instrumentation is becoming more important by helping us reduce the costs associated with damages and delays. These costs are becoming very significant elements of projects located in urban areas.

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Performance monitoring should be a part of any infrastructure project that involves significant uncertainty or large consequences from unexpected performance. Results from a performance monitoring program can help avoid undesirable performance and reduce consequences of unexpected performance. The benefits are broader than the narrow geotechnical issues we have traditionally considered. On projects that involve uncertainties about the existing conditions, new construction methods or materials, low margins of safety, high consequences of adverse performance, or tight restrictions, performance monitoring can provide benefits that may be several times the cost of the monitoring program. We need a better vocabulary to explain the value of performance monitoring to owners and the project organization. This paper has described three approaches to doing this. One approach is the more traditional style where the technical merits of performance monitoring are provided. Sixteen valuable reasons to do performance monitoring were identified and discussed. Some of the reasons to monitor performance represent relatively new roles for instrumentation (documenting performance for assessing damages, keeping stakeholders beyond the Project Team informed, satisfying regulators and helping to reduce litigation). Performance monitoring may provide substantial benefits to the project in these areas in ways not previously envisioned. The second approach to valuing performance monitoring is to estimate how likely a facility is to perform in different modes and what the consequences of the various performance modes might be. One then looks at the potential impacts of performance monitoring on the probabilities of undesirable performance and/or the consequences. This approach provides numerical estimates of the benefits of monitoring that can be compared to the costs of monitoring to indicate what monitoring is worthwhile. The techniques taught in decision theory can help us estimate the potential monetary benefits of a geotechnical instrumentation program. By applying these techniques, we can estimate how much money we can justify spending on a project to reduce potential risk costs from undesirable consequences. These techniques may also show us where to focus our instrumentation efforts to have the most benefit. The third approach looks at the project in broader terms to identify all events that could impact the schedule and cost for the project, thereby producing risk. The aim is to find ways to manage risk. The level of risk posed by each event is quantified by some means. Key risk indicators are identified and ways to measure the level of risk for each are found. A real-time monitoring program is used to monitor the key risk indicators as the project progresses. Corrective actions are taken when the measurement system indicates approaching undesirable performance. This approach is an expansion of Pecks Observational Method. As discussed above, performance monitoring must be an important part of any effective risk management strategy for a constructed facility. As more owners develop their risk management strategies, I expect to see performance monitoring as a key component of the risk management program. We might even go so far to

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consider performance monitoring as risk monitoring; that is a real-time quantitative measure of whatever elements of risk that can be measured. Performance monitoring best belongs to those responsible for risk management on the project. This is generally with the Owner or its representative and not with the contractor. Hopefully, this paper helps engineers and owners understand the value of performance monitoring as an integral part of an overall risk management strategy. The increasingly important role of performance monitoring to managing risk on a project should make us consider the best delivery method for performance monitoring. There is a strong tendency on infrastructure projects to make performance monitoring a part of the contractors work. In general this is akin to requiring the contractor to do the quality assurance. Most general contractors are not motivated to make performance monitoring systems work. They generally see instruments as things that get in their way and they think that measured performance only brings bad news for them. There are strong financial motivations for contractors to decimate the monitoring program once they have a signed contract. Conservative designs based on limited information add significant costs to repairing and constructing infrastructure. Delays and claims resulting from unexpected performance add to these costs. I see conditions favorable for performance monitoring to become a more integral part of the project management process. When more people understand that data from real-time performance monitoring systems can alert them to unexpected performance and allow them to take evasive action early, saving money and time in the process, we will see performance monitoring joining schedule and cost control as parts of the construction managers resource kit. Today, far too many well-thought-out monitoring programs are being decimated during execution because those managing the project dont have a clue about why the performance monitoring is important. We must do a more thorough job in the early phases of a project to clearly define the purposes and importance of the performance monitoring program. The definitions must be given in terms that all members of the Project Team can understand how each instrument is important to the success of the project. I advocate the development of a Performance Monitoring Manual for each instrumentation program that describes in lay terms the purpose(s) of the monitoring program, the anticipated benefits, the types of instruments and why they are important to the success of the project, the significant elements of the instrumentation specifications and why they are important to the success of the monitoring program, a listing of each instrument, its purpose and why it is important to the project, limits values for each instrument, frequency of monitoring and why the required frequencies are important, and any other material that justifies why a particular aspect of the monitoring program is important and should not be waived or removed. I believe that performance monitoring should become the responsibility of the construction management team. An effective performance monitoring system provides them with solid facts about the engineers design, the contractors work and
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the effects of site conditions. The construction management team can be in the position to provide incentives and impose penalties on contractors so they support a successful performance monitoring program. Performance monitoring must become more real-time. Consequences of some surprises have increased to unacceptable levels. Monitoring intervals must be sufficiently frequent to reveal sudden changes in trends of performance. Results must be reliable (believable). One has to be able react quickly without doubt about data quality. Results must be timely. One must have sufficient time to engage corrective actions. Results must be comprehensive. They must include enough information to support the next action to be undertaken. Periodic written assessment of the quality of the monitoring program and its actual benefits compared to anticipated benefits should be made to keep the program relevant and its benefits understood by all members of the project team. REFERENCES Dunnicliff, John (1988, 1993) Geotechnical Instrumentation for Monitoring Field Performance, John Wiley & Sons, New York. Lambe, T.W. (2003) (personal communication) Lambe, T.W. and Whitman, R.V. (1969), Soil Mechanics, Wiley & Sons, NY Lambe, T.W., Silva-Tulla. F. & Marr, W.A (1981). Key Features of the Geotechnical Safety Program of the Amuay Cliffside, Geotechnical Engineering, Vol. II, pp.97-121 Peck, R.B. (1969) Advantages and Limitations of the Observational Method In Applied Soil Mechanics, Geotechnique, June, pp 173-187. Silva, F., Lambe, T.W., and Marr, W.A. (2007). Probability and Risk of Slope Failure, accepted for publication in ASCE:JGGE.
Whitman, R.V. (1984) Evaluating Calculated Risk in Geotechnical Engineering, ASCE:JGE 110:2, February, pp 145-188.

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