Reliability Evaluation of Reinforced Concrete Pipes in Crack Opening Limit State

Resumo

Structural reliability theory is used in this paper to verify the capability of Brazilian code on concrete structures design NBR 6118:2003 concerning the evaluation of crack width in reinforced concrete pipes. Two limit state equations are defined in terms of crack opening. The First Order Second Moment method and Monte Carlo simulation are used in the reliability analysis. Through sensitivity analysis, problem parameters that have the largest contributions in the failure probability are identified. A parametric analysis is performed in these variates, in order to study their influence in failure probabilities. The study shows that the formulation of NBR 6118:2003 leads to non-uniform reliability and to uniform central safety factor.