Modern standards treat the resistance R and the action effects E as random variables. Structural safety and serviceability are achieved based on specified target failure probabilities considering a reasonable target confidence. The course aims in developing a deeper understanding of the basic design concepts used in modern standards and presents tools which can be used for design problems which are not covered by Standards. 

The course is structured in lectures on Thursdays and exercises on Mondays, and concentrates on the following topics:

  Basic definitions - safety, reliability, probability, risk

  Descriptive statistics and common theoretical distributions

  Failure probability and basic design concept

  Probabilistic models for actions and resistance

  Simulation techniques

As part of the examination, a practical problem has to be analyzed by
simulation in the scope of a homework.
Semester: SoSe 2024