This paper presents, from a systems orientation, a review of the resilience literature since its emergence as an ecological concept in academic parlance in 1973. It argues that much of the resilience literature covers existing ground in that existing engineering systems stability ideas are being reinvented. The review follows modern control systems theory as the comparison framework, where each system, irrespective of its disciplinary association, is represented in terms of inputs, state, and outputs. Modern control systems theory is adopted because of its cohesiveness and universality. The review reveals that resilience can be thought of in terms of adaptive systems and adaptation, where the system has the ability to respond to perturbations and changes through passive and active feedback mechanisms—returning the system state or system form to a starting position or transitioning to another suitable state or form. This systematic and cross-disciplinary review offers the potential for a greater understanding of resilience and the elimination of overlap in the literature, particularly related to terminology.
Stability and resilience are two crucial concepts to the proper functioning and understanding of the behavior of both natural and man-made systems exposed to perturbations and change. However, although the two have covered a similar territory within dynamic systems, the terminology and applications differ significantly. This paper presents a critical analysis of the two concepts by first collating the wealth of modern stability concept literature within dynamics systems and then linking it to resilience thinking, defined as adaptation where the system has the ability to respond perturbations and change through passive and active feedback structures. A lumped mass and simple pendulum, two simple linear and nonlinear dynamic systems following a state-space approach from modern control systems theory, are used to support the analysis and application. The research findings reveal that the two overarching categories of engineering resilience and socio-ecological resilience (extended ecological resilience) are in fact a reinvention of a closed-loop system dynamic stability with different types of active feedback mechanisms. Additionally, structural stability describes some vital aspects of social–ecological resilience such as critical thresholds where, under change, a system loses the ability to return to the starting form or move to another suitable form through active feedback mechanisms or direct management actions.
The resilience of building structures—as plain technical/physical/engineering systems or complex sociotechnical systems exposed to perturbations and change—has become increasingly important as natural disasters are on the rise and the world is changing rapidly. Existing resilience frameworks are focused mainly on the responses of building systems to perturbation events and their functional recovery, while change appears to be left out. This study applies the resilience system interpretation framework, which defines resilience in a cross-disciplinary environment as adaptation and adaptive systems, to analyze actual and conceptual building structure systems. The system framework, using modern control systems theory, defines resilience as the ability of the system state and form to return to their initial or other suitable states or forms through passive and active feedback mechanisms. A sample SMRF office building structure system is utilized to simulate the system state and form return abilities that are demonstrated by the system functional recovery time and functional recovery curve shape, respectively. This novel understanding of resilience accommodates a holistic and systematic integration of both perturbation and change in the portfolios of various building structures. The framework also provides a practical roadmap for resilience design and building of structures that effectively respond to perturbation while dynamically adapting to change in order to avoid obsolescence, as well as to increase the building’s useful life.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.