ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: A modern lifetime oriented design of structures includes inspection and monitoring strategies. Structural health monitoring guarantees that the load bearing capacity, the serviceability and the durability of the structure remains ensured. One main focus of the collaborative research center (CRC) “Life cycle assessment of structures via innovative monitoring”, funded by the DFG at Braunschweig University of Technology, is to optimize methods of structural health monitoring. In this article the framework for reliability-based system assessment developed by project field A1 of the CRC is described. The framework can be used to identify critical weak points or failure paths of a structure. It bases on methods of system and reliability theory. The gained knowledge about the structural system is used to formulate a probabilistic model with a fault tree, limit-state equations and information about the random variables for the structure. Using the results of the reliability analysis, further decisions concerning an inspection and monitoring design can be made.
