抄録
This paper deals with a problem in applying the statistical method to structural design. It is generally recognized that safety of structural system must be statistically evaluated, and reliability or failure probability has been proposed as a reasonable criterion for structural safety. From the point of the above view, the failure probability is used in reliability-based structural design instead of the safety factor. However, the safety factor has been widely used as the traditional structural design code, and has been the most popular design concept. Therefore, some problem still remain unsolved in the probabilistic design of structures. One of the problems for the designer is how to choose an appropriate value of safety factor corresponding to a level of design reliability. This problem stems from the difficulties in relating reliability to safety factor. Several research works concerned with the evaluation method of relating safety factor to structural failure probability are reviewed. Some extended approaches of reliability based design are also introduced. The basic concept and attitudes included the research works presented in this paper will suggest the new contributions on the design philosophy of materials system.
