Chapter
Feb 21, 2020
Geo-Congress 2020

Geotechnical Insights from Reliability-Based Design to Improve Partial Factor Design Methods

Publication: Geo-Congress 2020: Engineering, Monitoring, and Management of Geotechnical Infrastructure (GSP 316)

ABSTRACT

This paper presents insights obtained from reliability analysis and reliability-based design (RBD) for three geotechnical engineering examples, namely an underwater slope in San Francisco Bay mud that failed during excavation, a spread footing sustaining both vertical and horizontal loads, and laterally loaded piles in soil modelled with nonlinear and depth-dependent Matlock strain-softening p-y curves. The aim is to show how RBD via the first-order reliability method (FORM) can overcome some limitations of the load and resistance factor design (LRFD) method and the Eurocode 7 (EC7) design method. The differences and similarities between the design point in RBD and those in LRFD and EC7 are discussed. The ability of RBD-via-FORM to provide valuable information at its design point and to automatically reflect parametric uncertainties, correlations, and case-specific sensitivities and to resolve subtle load-resistance duality is demonstrated. It is suggested that RBD-via-FORM can be conducted in tandem with partial factor design methods in order to overcome some limitations which sometimes arise in the latter.

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REFERENCES

Ang, H.S. & Tang, W.H. (1984). Probability concepts in engineering planning and design, vol. 2-Decision, risk, and reliability. John Wiley, New York.
Baecher, G.B. & Christian, J.T. (2003). Reliability and statistics in geotechnical engineering. J. Wiley.
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Chan, C.L. and Low, B.K. (2012). "Probabilistic analysis of laterally loaded piles using response surface and neural network approaches". Computers and Geotechnics, Vol. 43, pp. 101-110.
Duncan, J.M. and Wright, S.G. (2005). Soil strength and slope stability. Wiley & Sons, 297 p.
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Low, B.K. (2017). "Insights from Reliability-Based Design to Complement Load and Resistance Factor Design Approach", ASCE, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 143(11).
Low, B.K. and Duncan, J.M., 2013. "Testing bias and parametric uncertainty in analyses of a slope failure in San Francisco Bay mud". Proc. of Geo-Congress 2013, ASCE, March 3-6, San Diego, 937-951.
Low, B.K. and Tang, Wilson H. (2007). "Efficient spreadsheet algorithm for first-order reliability method." Journal of Engineering Mechanics, ASCE, Vol. 133, No. 12, 1378-1387.
Low, B.K., et al. (2017). "EXCEL-Based Direct Reliability Analysis and Its Potential Role to Complement Eurocodes", Proc. TC205 workshop of 19thInternational Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (19ICSMGE), Seoul, Korea, 17-22 Sept, 2017. (Chapter 4 of the TC205-TC304 joint report, http://alum.mit.edu/www/bklow, /Book chapters).
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TC205/TC304 Working Group on “Discussion of statistical/reliability methods for Eurocodes”, (2017). https://www.icsmge2017.org/download/19th%20ICSMGE_Workshop_TC205&304.pdf
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Published In

Go to Geo-Congress 2020
Geo-Congress 2020: Engineering, Monitoring, and Management of Geotechnical Infrastructure (GSP 316)
Pages: 686 - 695
Editors: James P. Hambleton, Ph.D., Northwestern University, Roman Makhnenko, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Aaron S. Budge, Ph.D., Minnesota State University, Mankato
ISBN (Online): 978-0-7844-8279-7

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Published online: Feb 21, 2020

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Bak Kong Low, Ph.D., F.ASCE [email protected]
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological Univ., Singapore. E-mail: [email protected]

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