Probabilistic Failure Analysis of Steel Structures Exposed to Fatigue

The paper is focuses on one of probabilistic methods which can be used for failure analysis and reliability assessment of steel structures which are subject to cyclic loads and exposed to fatigue. A particular attention is paid to creation and propagation of fatigue cracks from edges and surface. On the basis of the reliability assessment, a system of inspections is proposed for structural details which tend to be sensitive to fatigue damage. A new probabilistic method which is still under development - Direct Optimized Probabilistic Calculation ("DOProC") - was used for this probabilistic task. This method is the basis of the FCProbCalc code.