On Some Methods in Safety Evaluation in Geotechnics

The paper demonstrates how the reliability methods can be utilised in order to evaluate safety in geotechnics. Special attention is paid to the so-called reliability based design that can play a useful and complementary role to Eurocode 7. In the first part, a brief review of first- and second-order reliability methods is given. Next, two examples of reliability-based design are demonstrated. The first one is focussed on bearing capacity calculation and is dedicated to comparison with EC7 requirements. The second one analyses a rigid pile subjected to lateral load and is oriented towards working stress design method. In the second part, applications of random field to safety evaluations in geotechnics are addressed. After a short review of the theory a Random Finite Element algorithm to reliability based design of shallow strip foundation is given. Finally, two illustrative examples for cohesive and cohesionless soils are demonstrated.