• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 1981

Current standard code for R.C. design consists of two conventional design parts, so called WSD and USD, which are based on ACI 318-63 and 318-71 code provisions. The safety factors of our WSD and USD design criteria which are taken primarily from ACI 318-63 code are considered to be not appropriate compared to out country's design and construction practices. Furthermore, even the ACI safety factors are not determined from probabilistic study but merely from experiences and practices. This study investigates the safety level of R.C. flexural members designed by the current WSD safety provisions based on Second Moment Reliability theory, and proposes a rational but efficient way of determining the nominal safety factors and the associated flexural allowable stresses of steel bars and concretes in order to provide a consistent level of target reliability. Cornell's Mean First-Order Second Moment Method formulae by a log normal transformation of resistance and load output variables are adopted as the reliability analysis method for this study. The compressive allowable stress formulae are derived by a unique approach in which the balanced steel ratios of the resulting design are chosen to be the corresponding under-reinforced sections designed by strength design method with an optimum reinforcing ratio. The target reliability index for the safety provisions are considered to be ${\beta}=4$ that is well suited for our level of construction and design practices. From a series of numerical applications to investigate the safety and reliability of R.C. flexural members designed by current WSD code, it has been found that the design based on WSD provision results in uneconomical design because of unusual and inconsistent reliability. A rational set of reliability based safety factors and allowable stress of steel bars and concrete for flexural members is proposed by providing the appropriate target reliability ${\beta}=4$.