A New Safety Format for Nonlinear Analysis

Paper in proceeding, 2011

With the increasing use of nonlinear analysis of concrete structures, questions concerning an appropriate safety format have been raised. When the safety format for nonlinear analysis according to EN 1992-2 was developed a model uncertainty which corresponds to simple beam and frame analysis was accounted for. However, when the safety format is applied on more difficult to model failure modes, which result in a higher model uncertainty, the safety format leads to design resistances below the target reliability. A new safety format for nonlinear analysis was proposed which leads to better agreement with the target reliability.