Structural reliability assessment of existing precast concrete building. Case study

Structural reliability of buildings has become an important issue during the last decades. Reliability of building is the practice of designing, constructing, operating, maintaining and removing buildings in such a way, which prevents the health deterioration, injuries or death during the use of the building. Evaluation and improvement of existing buildings becomes more and more substantial. For the most of the existing buildings the design life has been already reached or will be reached in the nearest future. The structures of these buildings need to be reassessed in order to find out whether the safety requirements are met. The safety requirements provided by the Eurocodes are starting point for the assessment of reliability. However, it would be uneconomical to require all existing buildings and structures to fully comply with these new codes and corresponding reliability levels. Therefore, the assessment of existing buildings differs from design situation. This case study describes the practice of determination of reliability level of structures of existing public building designed in accordance with different codes/regulations that differ from Eurocodes. It allows to reassess the actual reliability level of existing buildings under the operational load. Also, the evaluation methodology of the global reliability level of the whole building in terms of mechanical strength and stability of building is proposed.