Eurocode 7 and reliability : based design of earth retaining walls

• Main Author: Ho, Kit Fai
• Other Authors: Low Bak Kong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering::Geotechnical
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/64448
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Starting from April 2015, Singapore’s construction industry will switch over to the Eurocodes in order to replace the British Standards. The Eurocodes are the new standards for the design civil engineering works. The reasons behind the switch is to improve the standards of the industry by implementing one of the most advanced and established building codes. It allows each country to introduce National Annex which specifies parameters to customise its local requirements. However, the open nature of the Eurocode that allows more freedom to the designers have baffled experienced engineers to undergraduates alike. To complement the Eurocode, designers can resort to the Reliability Based Design that takes into account statistical properties of design parameters. The Reliability Based Design can provide probabilities of failure to the designer and help them to make better decisions. In addition, Monte Carlo simulations in @RISK software also provides the probability of failure through repetitive trials of simulation. Both of them complement each other and the Eurocode. The Microsoft Excel is used to create spreadsheet of Eurocode 7 and British Standard’s Overall Factor of Safety design. Besides that, the Reliability Based Design was written in Microsoft Excel to determine the reliability index which can be translated into the probability of failure. The spreadsheet of the Reliability Based Design is also used for Monte Carlo simulations in @RISK. Comparisons were made between Eurocode 7, Overall Factor of Safety, Reliability Based Design, and Monte Carlo Simulations. It was found that Design Approach 1 Combination 2 (DA1b) of the Eurocode 7 is usually the governing check and produces conservative designs. Besides that, the Eurocode is also more open to interpretations and has more combination of checks to create a safer design. The Reliability Based Design and Monte Carlo simulations provide probability of failure which provides insight to the designers on the reliability of the Eurocode 7 design. Nevertheless, there are still rooms for improvement for future researches such as inclusion of various design methodology etc.