Verification, validation, and uncertainty quantification (VVUQ) are the analyses that we do to make sure that model predictions and risk analyses are grounded in reality. We make sure that quantitative models are executed correctly (verification). We make sure that quantitative models are adequately faithful to reality (validation). And we make sure that uncertainties in the inputs to a quantitative model are accounted for correctly (uncertainty quantification). Engineers rely on quantitative models to help guide their design, production, and operational decisions. The success or failure of an engineering project often depends on how well the engineering analysts involved handle their model predictions. For generations, engineers have done what they can with best-guess analysis and factors of safety. For the most part, they have done amazingly well. Nevertheless, our civilization keeps pushing the boundaries of technical possibility with successively larger and more daring engineering projects, and the best-guess approach to engineering analysis has faltered many times. On a good day, only money and valuable equipment are lost. On a bad day, lives are lost. VVUQ exist to put an end to preventable and unnecessary engineering disasters. VVUQ are how you make sure that model-informed decisions don't blow up in your face, or worse yet, the customer's face. Alexandria Validation Consulting, LLC exists to help make a new generation of large-scale engineering projects possible. We do this by providing the VVUQ tools necessary to support safety analysis on those systems. However, our interests and methods are not limited to system-level analysis. Large-scale systems consist of successively smaller components. Every problem solved leads to new insights and new approaches. We are interested in any engineering problem of any scale in which traditional risk analysis methods have failed to yield a sensible and trustworthy answer. |