ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: The design of civil infrastructure facilities for conditions imposed by their service requirements and by natural environmental events is guided by codes, standards and other regulatory documents. While constructed facilities so designed usually possess a degree of integrity that is also available to withstand challenges from unforeseen events, events not explicitly considered may lead to unacceptable economic losses or precipitate a catastrophic collapse. Structural engineers now are seeking improvements to building practices to achieve performance beyond what is provided by current prescriptive code minimums, to enhance facility robustness, and to mitigate unacceptable economic damages from low-probability, high-consequence hazards. The new paradigm of performance-based engineering (PBE) is evolving to enable structural design to better meet heightened public expectations and to achieve more reliable prediction and control of infrastructure performance. Uncertainties in structural loads, system strengths and stiffnesses, and other factors in the building process give rise to risk, which is managed through building codes, standards and other regulatory documents. This paper explores some of the issues raised by the use of structural reliability and risk assessment methodologies as decision support tools for dealing with uncertainties rationally in PBE.
