Harmonisierung in der Geotechnik – ein einheitliches Nachweisverfahren.

Harmonization in geotechnics – a consistent design method The different used design approaches of EN 1997 are based on different traditions and philosophies in the European countries regarding to the type and time of factoring actions and resistances. The resulting variety of formats for the design approaches will also be retained in the future standards generation. Therefore, the goal of a harmonized design approach with a uniform level of safety is not achieved. In this article, the so called MRFA design approach is presented which is based on the basic equations of EN 1990 providing an own partial safety factor for each parameter (actions, effect of actions, ground resistances and geotechnical parameters). To determine these partial safety factors, reliability calculations were carried out for common geotechnical structures with different boundary conditions and for different limit states in such a way that a certain probability of failure is not exceeded. The method is explained in an application example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]