Reliability-based verification of limit states for geotechnical structures

Safety in geotechnical design has evolved from experience and judgment using overall factor of safety approaches to design methods in modern codes of practice which apply partial factors to loads and to strength parameters or resistances. Explicit treatment of uncertainties using probabilistic methods has been receiving more attention recently, both in the justification of partial factors in codes of practice as well as in design and assessment. The Eurocodes are fundamentally reliability-based, even though not all safety-relevant aspects are explicitly tied to the underlying reliability concepts as explained in the JRC Technical Report ‘Reliability background of the Eurocodes‘.
EN 1997-1 'Geotechnical design' (Eurocode 7) explicitly states reliability-based methods as one of the options to verify limit states of geotechnical structures alongside the partial factor method, prescriptive rules, testing, and the observational method. The present document serves as a guideline for reliability-based verification of limit states in design and assessment of geotechnical structures within the safety and reliability concepts of EN 1990-1 and EN 1997-1.