ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the safety philosophy of design, execution and use of earth structures. Partial factors for a probabilistic approach to safety and serviceability are recommended. Level II and Level III probabilistic methods are used only for determining the series of partial safety factors employed in the Level I probabilistic method. A realistic differentiation is achieved between the required safety levels. Where dealing with a building structure on a soil mass, the ß value for the subsoil can never be lower than the one that is used for the building structure. The failure probability of the structure as a whole is determined by the failure probability of the individual components. Apart from evaluating the macro-stability of a soil structure in the consolidated end situation, the macro-stability whilst building is in progress needs to be taken into account. Consequently, the building phase usually needs to be considered as a separate structure for which a separate safety level must be selected.
