Calibration of simplified safety formats for structural timber design

Abstract

A framework for calibrating the reliability elements in simplified semi-probabilistic design safety formats is presented. The objective of calibration is to minimize the increase of construction costs, compared to the non-simplified safety format, without reducing the level of structural safety. The framework is utilized for calibrating two simplified safety formats which aim at reducing the number of load combinations relevant in structural timber design. In fact, the load-duration effect makes the design of timber structures more demanding since a larger number of load combinations need to be considered compared with other construction materials.