Structural Safety, 1 (1982) 15-26 15

Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands

PROBABILITY-BASED CRITERIA FOR STRUCTURAL

DESIGN
Bruce Ellingwood

Center for Building Technology, National Bureau of Standards, Washington, DC 20234 (U.S.A.)

and

Theodore V. Galambos

Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (U. S.A.)

(Received March 10, 1982; accepted March 28, 1982)

Keywords: Buildings (codes); design (buildings); limit states; loads (forces); masonry; probability
theory; reinforced concrete; reliability; safety; specifications; standards; steel; structural
engineering.

ABSTRACT

Probabifity-based loading and resistance and an examination of levels of reliability im-

criteria are presented that are suitable for plied by the use of current design standards and
routine safety checking in design. The criteria specifications. The criteria are intended to be
are based on a comprehensive analysis of statis- used in specifications that are oriented towards
tical data on structural loads and resistances fimit states design.

INTRODUCTION sponds to a limiting allowable stress or to a

Safety and serviceability requirements are
checked in the routine design of conventional
structures using a series of equations of the
general form [1-6],
Design resistance > Effect of design loads. (1)
In safety-related checks, the resistance corre-
particular limit state such as yielding or frac-
ture of a tension member, buckling of a col-
umn, or formation of a mechanism. In
serviceability checks, the resistance may be a
limit on tolerable deformation, structural mo-
tion or localized damage. The loads arise from
the weight of the structure, its use by its
owners or occupants, the environment, and
accidents.
16
In working stress design [1,2,6], the design
loads are usually unfactored and are close to
the maximum probable loads to occur during
approximately a 50-year period of time [7].
The elastically computed stress arising from
these loads is limited to the allowable stress,
which is a specified fraction of the failure
stress. The ratio of the failure stress to ulti-
mate stress is the overall factor of safety.
Most checks of serviceability also utilize un-
factored loads. In strength design [4,6], the
loads are multiplied by load factors that are
generally greater than unity and the design
resistance is obtained by multiplying the
calculated strength by a resistance factor less
than unity.
The factors of safety or load and resistance
factors are provided to take into account the
uncertain nature of the loads, resistances and
models used in structural analysis. These un-
certainties may lead to unfavorable deviations
in the loads and in the load-carrying capacity
of the structure from what was assumed to
proportion and detail its members. Over a
period of time, standard-writing committees
have selected or adjusted these factors on the
basis of experience with existing structures.
perceptions regarding the accuracy of struc-
tural analysis methods, and intuition. Al-
though this process usually has served the
profession well, its intuitive basis makes it
difficult to quantify acceptable performance
and to achieve anything close to uniform reli-
ability in all structures designed by any par-
ticular specification. Moreover, there is no
assurance that the performance criteria will be
adequate if they are applied in nonroutine
design situations for which there may be little
experience. Pressures to reduce design costs
are expected to lead to the rapid introduction
of new construction materials and systems
without substantial experience with their per-
formance, making this last issue particularly
serious.
The development of probability-based limit
states design [7 9] has been motivated by a
desire to quantify performance of structures
and to treat uncertainties in resistance, loads
and analysis in a more ration~i way. Limit
states design, in contrast to working stress
design, is a behavior-oriented design method
that requires specification writers and design-
ers to consider explicitly the ~tructural re-
quirements for function and safet5 at service
and extreme load levels [8]. The probabilistic
approach is suggested by the observation that
many of the design variables exhibit statistical
regularity. Some nominal loads in a number
of standards (e.g. [3] and [5]) already have a
statistical basis. This article describes how
safety-related performance criteria for struc-
tural design can be selected using reliability
analysis to integrate available statistical data
on resistances and loads.
BASIC APPROACH
The development of practical probability-
based loading and resistance criteria that
would be acceptable to the professional de-
sign community at large has five essential
components:
Ill Develop statistical data to describe the
basic load and resistance variables in eqn. 1
[7.10-121.
(2) Establish procedures for calculating retia-
bilities of structural members and systems
[13-15]. Ideally, the performance criteria
should be based on a system reliability re-
qmrement. However. current practice usually
is to check performance on the basis of indi-
vidual member behavior.
(3) Establish target reliabilities for design by
analyzing reliabilities associated with struc-
tural members designed according to existing
criteria [7.10.16]. T h i s e n a b l e s the
probability-based criteria to be related to ex-
isting acceptable practice and provides the
continuity that is necessary from one design
specification to the next.
(4) Select a deterministic format for eqn. I

that balances theoretical appeal with the need
for simple safety and serviceability checking
procedures in professional practice [7-9,16].
Determine general load criteria suitable for all
construction materials.
(5) Develop resistance criteria that are con-
sistent with the load criteria selected in step 4
such that reliabilities are close to the target
values selected in step 3 [7,16].
Although steps 4 and 5 are closely related,
they have been identified separately. Divi-
sions of responsibility among the groups pre-
paring standards and specifications are such
that the load and resistance criteria usually
are developed by different groups at different
times. These five steps are elaborated upon in
the following sections.
STATISTICAL DATA BASE
The probability distribution of each load
and resistance variable used to calculate limit
state probabilities and to develop perfor-
mance criteria should characterize the uncer-
tainty in the variable that would be expected
in structures in service. Thus, measurements
of variability obtained, e.g., from laboratory
tests of material strengths or from local or
limited load measurements may not be suffi-
cient for determining the probability distribu-
tions. Sources of uncertainty due to modeling
and limited data must also be considered [13].
Many common limit states such as fracture
of tension members or flexural yielding of
beams can be formulated as a linear combina-
tion of resistance and load effects. Because of
the emphasis that these linear limit states
have received, the basic resistance variable
described in the following has been taken to
be the strength of the structural member in
question, while the basic load variable is the
load effect that is dimensionally consistent
with the resistance. In some cases where the
limit state is highly nonlinear, however, a
formulation in terms of the basic material
17
strengths and dimensions may be more ap-
propriate [7,9].
Structural loads
Most structural loads may be thought of as
consisting of a basic load parameter which is
essentially independent of the structure; a
modeling parameter that transforms the spa-
tially and temporally varying load into an
equivalent uniform (and usually static) load
for analysis and design purposes, and finally,
an influence coefficient or analysis factor that
transforms the uniform load into a structural
action such as a beam moment or column
thrust. Uncertainties in the basic environ-
ment, the load modeling, and structural anal-
ysis all contribute to the variability in the
load effects used to calculate structural relia-
bility.
When loads are combined, the probability
distribution of the maximum of their sum
during some time period T may be required
for the reliability analysis. If only one time-
varying load is combined with permanent
load, this calculation is relatively straightfor-
ward. However, if more than one time-varying
load acts, the probability distribution of the
maximum of a sum of random load processes,
Z=max[X,(t)+X2(t)+...+Xk(t) ] (2)
T
is required. The computation of the probabil-
ity distribution Fz(x ) is complex. Thus, ap-
proximations have been developed that re-
duce the load combination analysis to a prob-
lem of combining random variables rather
than random processes.
A simple model for this purpose presumes
that Z occurs when one of the loads attains its
maximum value during T while the other loads
are at their point-in-time values [17]. The
point-in-time load is simply the load Xj that
would be measured if the random load pro-
cess were to be sampled at an arbitrary time
instant. Thus, eqn. 2 is replaced by
Z=max max Xi(t ) + •. (3)
i T i~ l • j
18

Equation 3 appears to be a good approxima-
tion to eqn. 2 in many practical cases [18].
Moreover, it is consistent with the observa-
tion that those structural failures that are not
caused by negligence or accidents usually oc-
cur when one load attains an extreme value
rather than under a combination of several
time-varying loads [7]. Equation 3 implies that
a load process can be described with suffi-
cient accuracy by a point-in-time distribution
and a maximum distribution, each of which
may be obtained rather easily.
Table 1 summarizes statistical data ob-
tained in recent studies to characterize loads
for probability-based structural design (e.g.
[7]). The mean values are presented with ref-
erence to the nominal design loads in Ameri-
can National Standard A58 [3]. The coeffi-
cients of variation reflect sources of uncer-
tainty due to basic or inherent variability, the
load modeling, and structural analysis. In
simple frame structures and others for which
accurate analysis techniques exist, the uncer-
tainty due to structural analysis is negligible
in comparison to the other two. The assumed
probability distributions and associated means
and coefficients of variation were selected as
the distributions best fitting the tipper per-
centiles of the actual probability distributions
for the loads, which frequently were obtained
by numerical integration [7]. While the sta-
tistical estimates presented a~e considered
typical, some variation with geographic loca-
tion may be observed with the environmental
loads.
Structural resistance
The resistance of structural members and
systems to applied loads is normally ex-
pressed by a formula that has been deriVed:
from theories of structural mechanics and has
been verified by laboratory testing. This mod-
eled resistance may be denoted R,,, or
R,,, = R,,,( X,. X2 ..... ). (4)
in which X~ are the basic (and usually ran-
dom) variables used to determine load-carry-
ing capacity, such as material strengths or
structural member sizes. The idealizations of
structural behavior that underlie the formula-
tion of R,, contribute additional uncertainty
in the in-situ resistance of structural mem-
bers. This modeling uncertainty is manifested

TABLE 1
Typical statistical data on loads

Load Mean/Nominal Coefficient of Variation Probability Distribution

Dead Load, D 1.05 0.10 Normal

Live Load
50-year maximum, L varies--1.0 typ. 0.25 Type 1
Point-in-time, Lapt varies--0.25 typ. 0.55 typ. Gamma
Snow Load
50-year maximum, S 0.82 0.26 Type II
Annual extreme, S~ 0.20 0.75 Lognormal
Wind Load
50-year maximum, W 0.78 0.37 Type 1
Annual extreme, W~ 0.33 0.60 Type I
Earthquake Load,
50-year maximum
Western U.S. 1.00 1.38 Type tl
Eastern U.S. 0.30 1.38 Type II
 19

TABLE 2
Typical statistical data on resistance

Structural Member Mean Coefficient of Probability

Nominal a Variation Distribution

Structural steel
Tension members, yield 1.05 0.11 Lognormal
Compact beam, uniform moment 1.07 0.13 Lognormal
Concentrically loaded column, intermediate slenderness 1.08 0.15 Lognormal
Beam-column 1.07 0.15 Lognormal
Cold-formed steel, braced beams 1.17 0.17 Lognormal
Reinforced concrete
Beam in flexure 1.12 0.13 Lognormal
Beam in shear 1.10 0.20 Lognormal
Short tied columns, compressive failure 0.98 0.16 Lognormal
Plant precast and pretensioned beams 1.06 0.09 Lognormal
Two-way slabs, flexure 1.12 0.14 Lognormal
Unreinforced masonry
Walls in compression, uninspected workmanship 5.30 0.18 Lognormal

" Nominal value determined according to specification [1,2,4,6].

in the observed variation in the results of to 10 percent in mean resistance should be

carefully controlled laboratory tests from the
capacities predicted when all variables in eqn.
4 are known. The probability distributions of
structural resistance should reflect sources of
uncertainty due to inherent variability, model-
ing and prediction, and measurement.
A summary of typical statistical data on
structural resistance is presented in Table2
[7,10-12,16]. The probability distributions
take into account all sources of uncertainty
that would contribute to variations in the
capability of a member in a structure to carry
load. The mean values are presented with
reference to the nominal resistances R , , which
are computed using the procedures prescribed
in the appropriate material specifications
[1,2,4,6]. The coefficients of variation are typi-
cal of variabilities found in ordinary struc-
tures fabricated with average quality control.
The mean values have been adjusted to reflect
the difference in the rate of strain under which
members are tested in a laboratory and the
slow rates at which gravity loads would be
applied on a structure. An increase of from 5
made in calculating limit state probabilities
involving wind or earthquake loads.
SUMMARY OF RELIABILITY ANALYSIS
The basis for the evaluation of structural
safety and the development of probability-
based design criteria in this study is the
first-order, second-moment (FOSM) reliabil-
ity analysis [15]. Here, we summarize those
features required in subsequent sections.
The limit state function which relates the
(random) resistance and load variables for the
specific limit state of interest is given by
g( X,, X 2 ..... X,, ) = 0. (5)
By convention, failure is said to occur when
g( Xl, X2 ..... Xrn ) < 0. (6)
In F O S M analysis, the limit state function is
linearized at some appropriate checking point
g,
(X~', XJ' . . . . , X*), yielding a function
go( Xi, )(2 ..... Arm) to be used in place of g(.)
20
in eqns. 5 and 6. The reliability associated
with a given design is measured by a reliabil-
ity index, fl, defined as
fl = m go/Og,, ,
in which m g ° and ogo are estimates of the
m e a n and standard deviation of go. An illus-
tration of this analysis for the simple two-
variable problem g( X], X2) = X] X 2 is pre-
sented in Fig. 1. If the distributions for X 1 and
X 2 are known, a relation can be established
between fl and the limit state probability, PF.
In general, fl in eqn. 7 may be determined
by identifying a point (X~', X~'..... X*) satis-
fying eqn. 5 in which
X* = m i o%flio i,
~g [ o, ~g 121 '/2
o~,= o,~--~-/ Y.( .-~---~,.] j
and where mi, oi are the mean and standard
deviation in X r The solution for (X~', X~' .....
X*) and fl is performed iteratively [7,15] to
find factors ai that minimize ft. The probabil-
ity distributions of the X variables in Tables 1
and 2 can be included in the FOSM de-
termination of fl by transforming all variables
to "equivalent" normal variables during the
solution of eqns. 8 and 9 [15].
It might be noted that if the limit state
function in eqn. 5 is replaced for design pur-
poses by
g('y]Xttl , "}12Xtl2 ..... ~/tttX/1 )~--'0.
/
fXl-X 2
mxcx 2 X~- X 2
O'XI-X2
Fig. 1. Illustration of reliability index.
the load or resistance factors "6 on nominal
values X n corresponding to a prescribed reli-
ability ft. are simply
{7) ~,, - ( m, a,Boo,)/'X~ . (1 tl
EVALUATION OF EXISTING CRITERIA
The limit state probability or reliability in-
dex fl is the quantitative measure of safety or
serviceability and the basis for achieving uni-
form performance in probability-based limit
states design. The natural inclination xn
establishing an acceptable target value, fl0,
would be to rely on past experience. However,
(8)
the levels of performance associated with ex-
isting structural design criteria are not quanti-
(9) fied well because of their intuitive basis.
Analyses of structures conforming to existing
criteria indicate a wide range of reliabilities
for different limit states and load combina-
tions. Some of this variation may be justified
on the basis of differences in the modes and
perceived consequences of failure. However,
much of the variation may be attributable to
the failure of existing criteria to deal with
design uncertainties consistently.
Although it is necessary at the present time
to derive target reliabilities from an assess-
ment of existing practice, it should be recog-
nized that a total reliance on such an assess-
ment would tend to perpetuate any incon-
(lO) sistencies that currently may exist. Thus, the
assessment must focus on those designs for
which there is professional consensus that
performance currently is satisfactory and
which are not unduly conservative. The fol-
lowing reliability assessments of structural
members are referenced to a 50-year period of
time.
Gravity loads
The gravity load combinations involve dead
load plus m a x i m u m occupancy live toad on
 21

Typlcal range for I Reliability indices associated with current

re~nforced concrete I criteria for design of reinforced concrete and
Typical range for steel beams in flexure for dead plus live or
3~ steel t snow loads are shown in Fig. 2 as functions of
4
1 load ratios L o / D n and S n / D o. Load L 0 is the
basic unreduced uniform live load (e.g., L 0 =
Cive Descrlptlon 50 psf (2.4 kPa) in offices). It may be ob-
RC-Grade 60 D * L
RC-Grade 60 D+ S served that the decrease in fl-values for the
Steel D + L
Steel D + S steel beams is more pronounced than for con-
crete beams because in steel design a single
I I I I I
0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
factor of safety is specified [6], whereas in
L o / D n or S n / D n reinforced concrete design partial factors of
safety are applied to each load effect [4].
Fig. 2. Reliability index for steel and reinforced con-
crete beams (Tributary area= 400 ft 2 (36 m2). Considering the practical ranges of L o / D ~
and S , / D n for steel and reinforced concrete
beams in flexure, typical values o f / 3 are be-
floors and dead load plus maximum snow tween 2.7 and 3.2. Note that the value o f / 3
load on roofs. These gravity load cases appear for shear in reinforced concrete beams is less
to govern design in m a n y practical cases. Their than the/3 for flexure, despite the undesirable
analysis is relatively straightforward because nature of the shear failure.
frequently only one time-varying load need be Table3 summarizes other typical values of
considered in the load combination. Most de- /3 for the D + L combination for metal, con-
sign professionals feel that these load combi- crete, and masonry structural members [7]. As
nations are treated satisfactorily in existing mentioned earlier, the range in/3 for current
standards and specifications. Thus, the values criteria is considerable. Reliabilities for con-
o f / 3 that are calculated may be viewed with nections tend to be somewhat higher than for
some confidence. the members, which is desirable. However, the

TABLE 3
Summary of reliabilities associated with current criteria for dead and live loads

Member, limit state Reliability Index~ J3

Structural steel
Tension members, yielding ( L o / D , = 2) 2.5
Tension members, fracture ( L o / D n = 2) 3.4
Compact beam, uniform moment ( L 0 / D n = 2) 2.9
Column, intermediate slenderness, instability 3.0
Bolted or welded connections ( L o / D n = 2) 4.0
Reinforced Concrete
Beam, flexure 2.9
Beam, shear 2.3
Plant precast, pretensioned beam, flexure 3.6
Short tied column, compression failure 3.4
Unreinforced masonry
Wall in compression, uninspected workmanship, story-height 7.0

L o / D n equals 1.0 except where noted.

22

/3 for nonreinforced masonry walls loaded
under conditions approaching pure compres-
sion appears to be excessively conservative.
Similar analyses have been performed for
cold-formed steel, aluminum and wood
structural members [7].
Wind and earthquake loads
Combinations including both live and wind
loads would need to consider both the combi-
nations D + Lapt q-- 1,~ and D + L + I'Vapt (see
eqn. 3). The variation in /7 with L o / D ~ and
W~/D, is shown in Fig. 3 for the case where
gravity and wind loads are additive. The value
of /3 is in the range 2.0 2.5 when the wind
load effect is a major component of the total
load effect. Similar analyses of load combina-
tions involving earthquake loads lead to /3-
values of 2.0 or less [7].
The lower apparent reliability for load
combinations involving wind or earthquake
loads is due, in part, to the 1/3-increase in
allowable stress or reduction of 0.25 in total
factored loads permitted by all current stan-
dards used in this evaluation. The small likeli-
hood that two or more time-varying loads
attain their 50-year m a x i m u m values simulta-
neously is taken into account by the load
combination analysis, eqn. 3. Thus, the ad-
justment in stress or load apparently accounts
for more than the small probability that ex-
treme loads coincide. Wind and earthquake
loads affect the entire structural system.
whereas the live and snow loads tend to bc
more localized. Thus, it is possible that tile
one-third increase is an implicit allowance for
tile contribution of load-sharing and ductility
to system reliability. On the other hand, it
also is possible that current structures are
overdesigned with respect to gravit> loads and
underdesigned with regard to wind and earth-
quake effects. Additional research should ad-
dress this question.
PROBABILITY-BASED LOADING AND RE-
SISTANCE CRITERIA
Load and resistance criteria must be
selected to be consistent with the performance
and reliability requirements prescribed by
specification committees. Equations 8 through
11 show that partial safety factors on the
nominal load and resistance variables could
be derived that would lead to designs with
reliability index /3o in all cases. Figure 4 il-
lustrates the factors YD, "/L, and Ys on dead,

2,0 f

/
iI 2 / TL
Lo/D
0
-0
/ / - 0.5 Steel beQms
/
4
1.5
, ' , 1,0
4 ' / .,
%
1.0

.t ~ 0.5
o
D+
D+S
- - -

°o o15 ~Io & 21o 215 31o I I I I

Wn / Dn 1.Io 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
hn/D n, Sn/Dn
Fig. 3. Reliability index for steel m e m b e r s subjected to
gravity a n d wind loads (Tributary a r e a - 4 0 0 ft 2 (37 Fig. 4. Load and resistance factors for flexure in steel
m 2 ). b e a m s with f l a - 3.0.
 23

live and snow loads and resistance factor q~
for checking the flexural capacity of steel
beams that would be obtained by this analy-
sis. It may be observed that the required
values of ,~, ~'D, "fL, and 3's vary with L,/Do
and S,/Dn. This variation is significant for 7c
and ~'s- Variations in the partial safety factors
of this magnitude would not be acceptable in
standards and specifications used for routine
design because the factors would change dur-
ing each iteration of structural dimensioning
and detailing.
Practically speaking, load factors must be
selected to be constant and independent of
Ln/Dn, Sn/D~, etc. The fact that there are
certain general performance requirements that
are the same for all structures suggests that it
would be desirable for the load requirements
to be the same for all construction materials
[7,9]. Uniform load requirements would have
significant practical advantages over the di-
verse treatment of loads in existing standards
[1,2,4,6[. Moreover, the resistance criteria
should depend only on the limit state and
consequences of a failure and not on the
loads.
Figure 4 indicates that if the partial safety
factors on resistance and loads are specified
as constant in the checking equation, the re-
sulting designs will deviate unavoidably from
the target reliability 130. However, a checking
equation format and partial safety factors can
be chosen so as to minimize this deviation, in
an average sense, over those design situations
to which the checking equations are likely to
apply.
Numerous checking equation formats are
possible, and one must be selected that strikes
a balance between theoretical appeal and sim-
plicity. Strong preferences have been ex-
presses by professional committees [4,6] for
selecting the resistance criterion as ~ R n, in
which the resistance factor ~ is applied to
strength. A load format can be devised [7]
that is consistent with the treatment of com-
binations of loads in Eqn. 3, and yet retains
the nominal loads that currently are specified
in the A58 Standard [3]. The checking equa-
tion for the strength limit states becomes
¢bRn>yDDn+Y,Qo,+ ~ yjQn,, (12)
j4=i
in which Q. are nominal loads, YiQn, is the
factored principal variable load and terms
"YjQn,are equivalent to the factored arbitrary-
point-in-time loads in Eqn. 3.
The load and resistance factors must be
apportioned to the individual variables so that
the reliabilities are nearly uniform for all load
situations and are consistent with the conse-
quence to the structure of entering the various
limit states. The following procedure may be

TABLE 4
Assumed weights Pi for gravity load combinations

Material Combination Lo/Dn

0.25 0.50 1.0 1.5 2.0 3.0 5.0

Steel D + L
D + S 0.00 0.10 0.20 0.25 0.35 0.07 0.03
RC D + L 0.10 0.45 0.30 0.10 0.05 0.00 0.00
D+ S 0.30 0.40 0.20 0.05 0.05 0.00 0.00
Masonry D+ L
D + S 0.36 0.36 0.20 0.06 0.02 0.00 0.00
24
used [7]. A required nominal resistance R*
may be computed from Eqn. 8 for a target
reliability/3o and a given set of nominal loads.
Similarly, when the load and resistance fac-
tors are fixed, a nominal resistance may be
calculated from Eqn. 12, which usually is
somewhat different than R*. A set of load
and resistance factors ,~ and 7 may then be
selected that minimizes the weighted squared
difference between R* and R n, defined by
I ( ~ , ~,) = Epj(R*., - Ro~) ~ (13)
.i
over a predefined set of dead, live, wind,
snow, and earthquake loads for which the
criteria are to apply. The relative weights pj
assigned to the D + L and D + S load com-
binations are shown in Table 4 for steel, rein-
forced concrete, and masonry construction [7].
Note that the effect of dead load tends to be a
major component of the total load effect in
concrete and masonry construction.
Loading criteria
Load criteria must be set first if the goal of
uniform load requirements for all construc-
tion materials is to be attained. In fact, it is
quite likely that if the methodology were to be
applied separately to different construction
materials, different loading criteria for each
might be obtained. Because this would be
undesirable, and because of the nature of the
standard development process, it is necessary
to separate the resistance and load criteria,
even if such a separation might appear to be
artificial. However, useful load criteria cannot
be attained without some consideration of the
corresponding resistance criteria likely to be
used. Moreover, current inclinations and ex-
periences of the engineering profession in-
fluence the selection of both loading and re-
sistance criteria and place constraints on the
optimization of Eqn. 13.
Three examples illustrate this last point.
The first relates to the selection of the dead
load factor, 7D. Figure 4 suggests that this
factor could be about 1.10 (this factor takes
into account the fact that dead loads tend to
be underestimated). However, this low a value
of "/i) runs counter to professional experience
and would not be accepted. Thus, fD was set
equal to 1.2, which appeared to be the mini-
m u m acceptable value. The second relates to
~-factors. According to Fig. 4, ,) for flexure
might be as high as 0.95 in some cases. How-
ever, experience has shown that if q~ is set at
0.9 or higher for ordinary construction, it may
be difficult to adjust the resistance criteria to
account for improvements in fabrication or
quality control, both of which tend to reduce
l;~, without increasing ,~ above unity. Thus,
the loading criteria were derived with the
additional constraint that the ,~ for flexure in
steel and reinforced concrete should not ex-
ceed about 0.85-0.9 for average conditions.
Third, in current practice the same load factor
is assigned to live and snow loads; thus, while
Fig. 4 indicates that these factors should be
somewhat different, 7c was set equal to "/s-
The reliability analysis of designs conform-
ing to existing criteria indicated that values of
/3 for many flexural and compression mem-
bers tend to fall within the range 2.5-3.0.
Thus, the new toad criteria are chosen so that
specification committees can achieve retiabili-
ties within this range for most ordinary design
situations if they so desire. The calculation of
suitable load (and resistance) factors accord-
ing to Eqn. 13 is a constrained optimization
process and is described in [7]. The load
criteria obtained are
1.4D,1
1.2 D n + 1.6L n
1.2D n + 1.6Sn + (0.5L, or 0.SW,) (14)
1.2D. + 1.3Wn + 0.5L n
1.2D n + 1.5En + (0.5Lo or 0.2S,)
0.9D, -- (1.3Wn or 1.5E.)
Some load factors are less than unity in
 25

combinations involving more than one time- TABLE 5

varying load. This is a consequence of using Selection of resistance factors
Eqn. 3 as a basis for combining loads and the
fact that the probable values of the point-in- Member, Limit state flo
time loads are only a fraction of the nominal
Structural steel
loads [3].
Tension member, yield 3.0 0.83
Beams in flexure 2.5 0.89
Resistance criteria Beams in flexure 3.0 0.78
Column, intermediate slenderness 3.5 0.75
The use of the load criteria in Eqn. 14 leads Reinforced concrete
to a more uniform reliability index /3 for Beam in flexure 3.0 0.85
different combinations of Ln/Dn, Wn/D n, etc., Beam in shear 3.0 0.70
than is possible with the loading criteria in Tied column, compressive
failure 3.5 0.62
current standards, as illustrated in Fig. 5.
However, material specification committees Masonry, unreinforced
Wall in compression, uninspected 5.0 0.41
can adjust /3 further by varying the ,#-factor Wall in compression, uninspected 7.5 0.22
and the specification of R n. In some cases,/3
and ¢ could be selected to achieve the same
reliability, in an average sense, as existing
criteria; in other cases, certain adjustments in existing specifications. In both cases, the val-
/3 might be desirable. ues of ¢ are lower than the capacity reduction
The ,/,-factors corresponding to a pre- factors in existing standards [4,6].
scribed value of /3o can be obtained using Figure 6 compares nominal design strengths
Eqn. 13, in which the load factors have been obtained from the proposed probability-based
fixed according to Eqn. 14. Typical values of criteria to strengths obtained from existing
computed according to this procedure are criteria. The additional conservatism observed
shown in Table 5. Alternatively, specification where the variable load dominates the load
committees may very well wish to select q, combination is typical of the results obtained
values so that the required nominal resis- when existing criteria are used as a basis for
tances R , are similar to those obtained using deriving probability-based design criteria.

5
PROPOSED CRITERIA

4 Rnew
Proposed: CR : 1 . 2 D + 1.6L
n
Rold
n
- "~- .~,. 0.75
0.80
0.85 1,05
/, -- 0.90
Current ,
practice

1.0 I
1,0/ 1.5 210 2,5
Lo / On

0 I I I I I 0.95
0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2 5 3.0
Ln/Dn

Fig. 5. Comparison of reliability indices for steel beams

using existing and proposed Probability-Based Limit Fig. 6. Comparison of design using existing and pro-
State Design specifications. posed probability-based criteria.
26
CONCLUSION
Practical probability-based loading and re-
sistance criteria have been derived using sta-
tistical data on various structural loads and
strengths in a FOSM reliability analysis. These
criteria should be no more difficult to use in
routine design calculations than existing
criteria. However, they have a more rational
basis because design uncertainties are treated
explicitly and systematically. This systematic
treatment would facilitate the adjustment of
the criteria in subsequent revisions of stan-
dards and specifications or when additional
data become available.
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