DESIGN AND RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT OF ROOF STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS USING THE NEW DIGITAL GROUND SNOW LOAD MAP OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC

The paper deals with the problems of design and reliability assessment of roof structural elements exposed to the effects of snow load. A new digital ground snow load map of the Czech Republic is introduced in this paper. This digital map provides to structural designers detailed information about the characteristics of snow load on the ground for arbitrary selected locality in the Czech Republic. The digital map covers the area of the Czech Republic by the net 100 x 100 m. The following data are given to every square 100 x 100 m: (a) characteristic value of snow load on the ground according to European standards; (b) statistical characteristics of annual maximum ground snow load (mean value mu, standard deviation sigma, variation coefficient V and skewness alpha); (c) sorted ground snow load history - so called load duration curves. Possibilities of utilizing the data from digital map are demonstrated in this paper using an example of steel purlin design. The Partial Factors Method as well as Simulation-Based Reliability Method are used for design and assessment in this example.