Abstract
After the Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake occurred on January 17, 1995, the earthquake design codes of highway bridges were revised by the Japanese Association of Road Engineering. However, the revised edition of codes were performed within the conventional design paradigm. They are not written based on the general principle of the reliability design of the structure (ISO2394) adopted in Europe and America. In this paper, a load factors design format based on the reliability theory for steel rigid-frame piers at elastic limit states is proposed using the reliability evaluation results of the author's early papers. The load factors are calculated so that the steel piers are ensured the target reliability index βT at the elastic limit state. The steel rigid-frame piers are redesign by using proposed design format and the reliability indices of these piers are calculated to check the effectiveness of the proposed format.
