Analysing the effect of rainfall on railway embankments using fragility curves

Many railway embankments across Europe were constructed over 150 years ago. These embankments were not subject to rigorous design practice but instead were crudely constructed using end tipping techniques. As a result, the majority of these embankments are overly steep and far in excess of the design angles recommended in Eurocode 7. Over recent...

Assessment of Reliability-Based Serviceability Limit State Procedures using Full-Scale Loading Tests

Geotechnical reliability-based limit state design methodologies are rapidly evolving to meet the demands of various applications. However, the accuracy of these new procedures should be independently assessed and improved as new loading test data is made available. This paper focuses on the assessment of two relatively new serviceability limit...

Safety standards of flood defenses

Current design codes like the Eurocode use safety or reliability classes to assign target reliabilities to different types of structures or structural members according to the potential consequences of failure. That, in essence, is a risk-based criterion. A wide range of structures is designed with such codes, and distinction is made between...

Optimisation of Structural Systems by Appropriately Assigning Probabilities of Failure: Application to Rubble Mound Breakwaters

An appropriate assignment of probabilities of failure to subsystems and components in a structural system can bring a minimum of costs and risk. In this paper, a method for economic optimisation of rubble mound breakwaters using pre-assigned probabilities of failure is presented. Application to a design case shows that the proposed method is...