FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions About Probabilistic Technology, PredictionProbe and UNIPASS® Software
QUESTIONS
- What is Probabilistic Technology?
- When was Probabilistic Technology developed?
- What is the difference between statistical approaches and Probabilistic Technology?
- What is UNIPASS?
- Do I have to be an engineer to use UNIPASS?
- How long does it take to learn Probabilistic Technology?
- How do Monte Carlo simulations relate to Probabilistic Technology?
- Why do we need Probabilistic Technology?
- Is Probabilistic Technology mature enough for practical applications?
- What is the best way to begin implementing the technology?
- At what stage of a project should Probabilistic Technology be implemented?
- Which industries have potential applications in Probabilistic Technology?
- What kind of projects most benefit from Probabilistic Technology?
- What kind of operating systems does the UNIPASS software require?
- What kind of technology support does PredictionProbe offer its customers?
- How do I become a registered user in the Probabilistic Technology Community?
2. When was Probabilistic Technology developed?
Probabilistic Technology began some 80 years ago with the study of the theory of structural reliability. The first phase, from about 1920 to 1960, appears in retrospect as a very slow beginning. During this period one or two dozen pioneers, scattered over many countries, worked independently on various elements of the theory of reliability applied to problems of structural strength. They questioned established thought and developed the basic concepts of random structural events, departing radically from the classical notions of structural engineering.
While considerable theoretical and practical work was done in this field, there was no comprehensive commercial software that can solve complex probabilistic problems in a practical manner. Existing software tools (e.g., FEBREL, NESSUS, PROBAN, ProFES, CALREL) had limited capabilities, were not supported and maintained by their developers, or were not offered commercially to the general public.
Finally, during the period from mid-1990 to present, as systems have grown more complex, and the need for non-deterministic analysis has become more apparent, software vendors devoted increasing attention to the development of off-the-shelf commercial codes for performing probabilistic analysis. This produced several off-the-shelf software tools with various capabilities for predictive measurement and analysis (e.g., UNIPASS, ANSYS/PDS, iSIGHT). Today, UNIPASS® leads the market as the only probabilistic tool which uses all of the capabilities of the law of probability combined with deterministic and statistical methods.
