Practical methods of structural reliability

Authors

Ton Vrouwenvelder and Michael H. Faber

Abstract

When designing and maintaining structures, decisions must be made with respect to dimensions, materials, repairs or strengthening and maintenance. In general, one wants to find an optimal decision, maximizing the service life benefits including costs of construction, repair maintenance and costs of undesired behaviour. These decisions have to be made without exact knowledge of about many parameters, such as actions and structural properties. An efficient framework for dealing with such situations is the probabilistic decision theory. The depth and details of the analysis depend on the problem, but the principles are always the same. In many cases, it is sufficient to use code type design methods with help of partial factors. It is however, essential that the codes have been calibrated to clear reliability targets. In other cases, like special structures or complex assessment situations, it might be helpful to use the Structural Reliability Theory directly. This paper presents the available models and methods as well as the corresponding design philosophy and possible strategies that can
be used in both cases. The paper follows, by and large, the lines of the Probabilistic Model Code, as developed by the Joint Committee on Structural Safety (JCSS).

Published in/by

Proceedings ICASP10, 10th Intern. Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering, Tokyo, Japan, 31.07- 03.08.2007.