Seguridad estructural. Una lucha con incertidumbres

Structural safety. A struggle against uncertainty

Technical as well as administrative and legal shortfalls still persist today that obstruct the practical implementation of explicit methods for the treatment of structural safety, whether they consist in probabilistic calculation or risk analysis procedures. There is, then, a need to develop pragmatic and directly applicable methods and models to analyze the risks inherent in structures. An understanding of the level of structural reliability required is essential in this context, for it constitutes the basis for rational decision-making related with the safety of structures. The present article shows that simple probabilistic models able to suitably reflect the state of uncertainty at the design stage can be developed for a representative set of reinforced concrete members. By using such models it is likewise shown that the level of structural reliability required can be established with sufficient precision. In light of these convincing results, the authors contend that the direct application of explicit methods for addressing the safety issue, risk analysis procedures among them, is technically viable in structural design.