Serviceability considerations in reliability-based foundation design

Serviceability limit state (SLS) considerations often govern the design of foundations. The objective of this paper is to review the limited literature on reliability-based design for SLS and to suggest useful directions for future work. A review of several new design codes indicates that ultimate and serviceability limit states are not verified in the same way. The former check conforms to reliability principles, but the latter is essentially verified in a deterministic way. To address SLS within the reliability framework, it is necessary to characterize the uncertainties associated with foundation displacements and tolerable displacements. The former is discussed with particular attention to spatial correlation, model uncertainties, and load-displacement nonlinearities. Uncertainties in tolerable displacements are discussed using two case histories. Copyright ASCE 2006