Safety factors for structural design-history and developments

The design of structures is concemed with the generation of solutions and the verification of the reliability. potential design solutions are a result of a process of problem formulation, definition of objeciive functions, conceptual design and optimization. To control this process, many strategies have been developed over the years. An example of a practical approach is the mix of creative and systematic meihods proposed by Cross (1994). The reliability of the selected design solution is mostly verified with use órdesign rules. For engineering practice it is essential that these rules are generally accepted. Codes and standards can be seen as such state-of-the-art guidelines. In this pup". the history of philosophies of reliable design are discussed and the partial factor approach is discusse