Reliability assessment of alternative Eurocode and South African load combination schemes for structural design

Abstract

The basic European standard for design of buildings and other engineering works, EN 1990 'Basis of structural design', provides alternative design procedures and parameters for which national choice is allowed. One of the most important decisions relates to the fundamental combinations of actions for persistent and transient design situations. It appears that the reliability of structural members, designed according to the alternative combination rules provided in EN 1990, may vary considerably. In the presented study probabilistic methods of structural reliability are used to identify characteristic features of alternative combination rules and to propose a new efficient rule. The reliability performance of the present South African load and combination factors are compared to the alternative schemes. It is confirmed that although the minimum level of reliability is achieved for the alternative load combination schemes, levels of reliability and consistency vary considerably over a limited but representative range of design situations. It is also shown that reliability of reinforced concrete members depends on the structural configuration.

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