“…This selection was based upon prior experience with the technique and the availability of a computer code to perform the analysis (Pierce, 1981). In addition, FAST is a well proven technique that has been used in several engineering disciplines to aid in validation of math- ematical models (Boni and Penner, 1977;Pierce, 1981;Pierce and Cukier, 1981;Smith, 1984;Kuntz et al, 1976;Koda et al, 1979;Falls et al, 1979;Tilden et al, 1981). Only a brief review of the salient features of the method are given here, but a detailed description of the therretical development of the techniques is given elsewhere (Cukier et al, 1978).…”