Probabilistic reliability assessment of steel structures exposed to fatigue

The paper describes methods used for probabilistic assessment of reliability of steel structures and bridges that are exposed to cyclic loads. Propagation of fatigue cracks from surface and edges is taken into account, the maximum permitted dimension being of particular attention. The model is based on a linear fracture mechanics. Conditional probability is the basis when designing a regular system of inspections for the structure. A new method, which is still under development, has been used for probabilistic modeling of fatigue damage. Direct Optimized Probabilistic Calculation-DOProC-appears to be a very efficient for the computation of probabilities. DOProC provides the solution with only a numerical error and an error resulting from input and output quantities discretizing.