Reliability analysis of the bearing failure problem considering uncertain stochastic parameters

The consideration of uncertainties plays an increasing role in the design of geotechnical structures. An important procedure in the uncertainty analysis is the reliability assessment whereby the required statistical quantities and distributions are assumed to be known exactly. Due to small sample observations and missing information this is not the case in practical applications and uncertainties in the stochastic parameters themselves have to be considered. In our study we estimate the parameter variation of soil properties by statistical procedures and perform an extended reliability analysis of a shallow foundation considering these uncertainties. We propose a novel approach based on a Taylor series expansion which enables the estimation of the failure probability variation very efficiently. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.