Safety Checking Formats for Limit States Design

The growing need for a unified approach to structural design for different construction materials and technologies is met by the limit states design approach. Several standards-writing committees currently are considering how best to implement practical limit states design criteria. This paper examines the relative advantages of several approaches proposed for this purpose, with regard to their ability to provide desired levels of reliability for all probable design situations. The choice of an appropriate approach is found to depend on fundamental characteristics of structural behavior, and thus might not be the same for different construction materials.