Statistical methods for the risk-based design of civil structures

In the design of civil structures, such as dikes, storm surge barriers, bridges, buildings, and offshore platforms, cost-benefit analyses have become common to determine the safety target of the structural design. The designer should model the trade-off mechanism between structural costs and benefit due to a reduction in the failure probability. In this study statistical methods for the risk-based design of civil structures have been evaluated, compared and extended. For that purpose, the study is divided into four main topics: 1) the structuring and analysis of various kinds of uncertainties; 2) the treatment of the statistical estimation methods; 3) the analysis of the homogeneity aspects of data; 4) the investigation of design philosophies for civil structures. The study contains several case studies where high degrees of reliability are demanded and where statistical information is scarce.