Factors of Safety and Reliability in Geotechnical Engineering

Simple reliability analyses, involving neither complex theory nor unfamiliar terms, can be used in routine geotechnical engineering practice. These simple reliability analyses require little effort beyond that involved in conventional geotechnical analyses. They provide a means of evaluating the combined effects of uncertainties in the parameters involved in the calculations, and they offer a useful supplement to conventional analyses. The additional parameters needed for the reliability analyses—standard deviations of the parameters—can be evaluated using the same amount of data and types of correlations that are widely used in geotechnical engineering practice. Example applications to stability and settlement problems illustrate the simplicity and practical usefulness of the method.