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Steel and Composite Structures Volume 4, Number 6, December 2004 , pages 419-435 DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/scs.2004.4.6.419 |
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System and member reliability of steel frames |
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W. Zhou and H. P. Hong
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| Abstract | ||
| The safety level of a structural system designed per code specifications can not be inferred directly from the reliability of members due to the load redistribution and nonlinear inelastic structural behavior. Comparison of the system and member reliability, which is scarce in the literature, is likely to indicate any possible inconsistency of design codes in providing safe and economical designs. Such a comparative study is presented in this study for moment resisting two-dimensional steel frames designed per AISC LRFD Specifications. The member reliability is evaluated using the resistance of the beam-column element and the elastic load effects that indirectly accounts for the second-order effects. The system reliability analysis is evaluated based on the collapse load factor obtained from a second-order inelastic analysis. Comparison of the system and member reliability is presented for several steel frames. Results suggest that the failure probability of the system is about one order of magnitude lower than that of the most critically loaded structural member, and that the difference between the system and member reliability depends on the structural configuration, degree of redundancy, and dead to live load ratio. Results also suggest that the system reliability is less sensitive to initial imperfections of the structure than the member reliability. Therefore, the system aspect should be incorporated in future design codes in order to achieve more reliability consistent designs. | ||
| Key Words | ||
| probability of failure; reliability index; system; frame; nonlinear; inelastic. | ||
| Address | ||
| C-FER Technologies, 200 Karl Clark Road, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6N 1H2 | ||