ABSTRACT
General approaches for the assessment of existing structures were recently developed by ISO and CEN. These events provide the opportunity to extend the standardized basis of structural design to include procedures for the assessment of existing structures that are consistent with design practice. This paper considers ways in which the procedures for deriving semi-probabilistic design parameters can be applied to the South African head standard for structural design SANS 10160-1 as an example case. Ways are identified for devising assessment procedures that are equivalent to standardized design in terms of compliance to reliability principles, whilst accounting for conditions requiring assessment. As a demonstration, a set of partial factors for assessment are derived, based on adjusted optimal target reliability levels. This could result in a reduction of around 20% in the assessment margin, whilst still exceeding or complying to societal levels of reliability.
