ABSTRACT
The nonlinear numerical analyses (NLNAs) have become the preferred instrument devoted to simulate the actual physical response of civil reinforced concrete (RC) structures and infrastructures. As for the numerical outcomes from this kind of onerous calculations, they have to be analyzed and processed to satisfy target safety levels required by design codes. In this regard, different methods (i.e., safety formats – SFs) have been described and reported by literature and codes. All the different SFs are able to define a general approach to compute the design value of parameters describing the overall structural behavior (i.e., structural resistance) including the relevant sources of uncertainties: the aleatory and the epistemic ones. This chapter reports and describes the current methodologies proposed by design codes and recent scientific advances to perform reliability evaluations of both existing and new RC structures by means of NLNAs.
