Abstract
Environmental contours are widely used as a basis for e.g., ship design. The traditional approach to environmental contours is based on the well-known Rosenblatt transformation. However, due to the effects of this transformation the probabilistic properties of the resulting environmental contour can be difficult to interpret. An alternative approach to environmental contours uses Monte Carlo simulations on the joint environmental model, and thus obtain a contour without the need for the Rosenblatt transformation. This contour have well-defined probabilistic properties, but may sometimes be overly conservative in certain areas. In this paper we give a precise definition of the concept of exceedence probability which is valid for all types of environmental contours. Moreover, we show how to estimate the exceedence probability of a given environmental contour, and use this to compare different approaches to contour construction. The methods are illustrated by numerical examples based on real-life data.
This is a accepted version of a chapter from the book Safety and Reliability. Theory and Applications. © CRC Publishing / Taylor & Francis Group