Repair, Evaluation, Maintenance, and Rehabilitation Research Program. Reliability of Steel Civil Works Structures.

摘要

The reliability function of a structure--the probability that the structure will perform adequately--represents a condition index that is useful in evaluating the structure's condition. A generally applicable, three-step procedure has been developed for calculating structural reliability using existing information about a particular structure and the evaluator's confidence in this information. The structure's margin of safety is approximated by a normal distribution and its moments are evaluated from point estimates. It is suggested that the three-step procedure be used to evaluate the safety of existing sheet pile and other metal structures. The method has been applied to three sheet pile structures representative of those maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Keywords: Civil engineering; Maintenance management; Pile structures. (sdw)