Reliability-based Structural Safety Evaluation of Reinforced Concrete Members

The strength of reinforced concrete members may vary from the calculated or the nominal strength due to variations in the material strength and dimensions of the element. Statistical descriptions of the variabilities in loads and strengths are required in all studies pertaining to the safety of reinforced concrete members. Therefore, this paper recommends a number of values for the coefficient of variation of concrete, reinforcement, dimension and load to be used in the probability analysis. Also, this study analyzes reinforced concrete members using the Advanced First Order Second Moment (AFOSM) method using the statistical characterization of variables. This study shows that Bayes' theorem is an effective tool for updating prior probabilities when the value of a random parameter is known. Finally, the results in this paper contribute to the limit state reliabilities implied in the current design of reinforced concrete elements.