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

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.