Theoretical and Practical Aspects of the Reliability Analysis of Timber Structures

Structural reliability, expressed in terms of probability of failure or reliability index, is a useful tool for code calibration purposes. It is, however, important to bear in mind that the numerical results obtained are sensitive to input information like distribution functions. Without standardisation of this input data together with target reliability values, there is a great risk of misuse of the reliability analysis. Here a proposal is given for a standard format of code calibration. Knowledge learned from failures shows that the reasons for structural failures are, in most cases, different from the information taken into account in the theoretical analysis. The reasons are gross human errors, which are beyond the scope of structural reliability analysis. Accordingly, the theoretical safety index only has a secondary effect on the frequency of structural failures. 1