Abstract
The reliability-based design method was recently introduced to the technical standard for port and harbor facilities. The standard method is partial factors method, however, other methods that evaluate the reliability index directly can also be applied. Taking the design of pile supported wharves as an example, performance function is implicit and the application of the methods that evaluate the reliability index directly is difficult to the practical design. This study aims at clarifying the applicability of response surface method for pile supported wharves. As the performance function can be evaluated explicitly by the method, the calculation of reliability indices is comparatively easy. The applicability of first-order second-moment method is also discussed.
