Theory of reliability in structural design

Abstract

The article presents a review of the theory of reliability and its use for design code making procedures based on the probabilistic approach. Principles of structural safety in design code making are considered. To do so, the basic principles of the limit state methods in the form of partial factors and ways of their development are analyzed. The problem of manufactured structures or specimen reliability evaluation is discussed according to the control test results. Classification of loads and actions, which were adopted during the code making, is presented. Descriptions of the load combinations are considered. Evaluation of the risk in civil engineering is observed and estimations of the acceptable and optimal risk are discussed. Development of reliability based design principles is also presented. Based on review of preceding work, general requirements for probabilistic codes are described and the critical observations of the modern methods of the analysis of the failure probability are presented. This review article cites 125 references.