Reliability of Geotechnical Structures in ISO2394

ISO2394 is meant to be used as a basis for national and international code committees to draft codes of practice where the principles of risk and reliability are utilized for design and assessment of structures over the entire service life. One important difference between the current ISO2394, 2nd edition (1998) and the forthcoming ISO2394, 3rd edition (2015) is the inclusion of a new Annex D on "Reliability of Geotechnical Structures". The need to achieve consistency between geotechnical and structural reliability-based design is explicitly recognized for the first time in ISO2394 with the inclusion of Annex D. The emphasis in Annex D is to identify and characterize critical elements of the geotechnical reliability-based design process that are distinctive from the general principles presented in main text.
Annex D was developed to emphasize the need to avoid over-simplification of ground truths and the need to respect the diversity of geotechnical engineering practice. It is recognized that geotechnical engineering practice is less amendable to standardization compared to structural engineering practice, because there are diverse site conditions and diverse local practices that grew and adapted over the years to suit these conditions. These distinctive differences between structural and geotechnical engineering practices cannot be ignored.
This book provides information (data, methods, examples) that can be used for full probabilistic or semi-probabilistic design of geotechnical structures in line with the topics covered in Annex D (Uncertainty representation of geotechnical design parameters, statistical characterization of multivariate geotechnical data, statistical characterization of model factors, and implementation issues in geotechnical reliability-based design). The scope is restricted to those topics that explain how existing geotechnical engineering principles widely proven in practice can be implemented within a reliability framework, preferably supported by actual soil data and realistic design examples. The book unlocks the general principles of reliability as presented in the revised version of ISO 2394 for extended application in geotechnical practice effectively by elaboration of the topics covered by Annex D. The resulting systematic application of reliability based geotechnical design will consequently be soundly founded on the reputable international standard.

Kok-Kwang Phoon?is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS). He is a Professional Engineer in Singapore and past President of the Geotechnical Society of Singapore. His main research interests include statistical characterization of geotechnical parameters and reliability-based design in geotechnical engineering. He is the recipient of numerous research awards, including the ASCE Norman Medal in 2005 and the NUS Outstanding Researcher Award in 2010. He is the Founding Editor of Georisk and Chair of TC304 (Engineering Practice of Risk Assessment and Management) in the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). He was former Chair of ASCE Geo-Institute Risk Assessment and Management Committee. He is Fellow of ASCE and Fellow of the Academy of Engineering Singapore.

Johan V. Retief?is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He was awarded DSc(Eng) and DEng degrees from Pretoria and Stellenbosch Universities and graduate degrees from Imperial College and Stanford University. His fields of interest are the development of risk and reliability to design standards as the basis of design, with applications to wind loading, structural concrete and geotechnical practice, amongst other related topics. As member of ISO TC98 he has been a member of the management group for ISO2394:2015 and is presently Convenor for the revision of the related ISO22111. He is a member of the SA Bureau of Standards TC98 on design standards, a fellow of SAICE and moderator of its journal and received the 2014 Jennings award for a geotechnical paper with Dr Dithinde.