Comparison of deterministic and probabilistic approaches to the reliability assessment of steel structures

This paper deals with comparison of traditional reliability assessment specified in codes and next on simulation based probabilistic approaches represented by SBRA method. The attention is focused predominantly on key points of the reliability assessment procedure of steel bar structures, i.e. representation of actions, material properties and imperfections, combining of random variables, choice of global analysis with respect to the stability effects and finally the principles of safety and serviceability assessment