• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.28 no.1C
• /
• pp.19-29
• /
• 2008

As a part of study to develop LRFD (Load and Resistance Factor Design) codes for foundation structures in Korea, reliability analyses for driven steel pipe piles are performed and the target reliability indices are selected carefully. The 58 data sets of static load tests and soil property tests conducted in the whole domestic area were collected and analyzed to determine the representative bearing capacities of the piles. The static bearing capacity formula and the Meyerhof method using N values are applied to calculate the expected design bearing capacity of the piles. The resistance bias factors were evaluated for the two static design methods by comparing the representative bearing capacities with the design values. Reliability analysis was performed by two types of advanced methods: First Order Reliability Method (FORM), and Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) method using resistance bias factor statistics. The static bearing capacity formula exhibited relatively small variation, whereas the Meyerhof method showed relatively high inherent conservatism in the resistance bias factors. Reliability indices for safety factors in the range of 3 to 5 were evaluated respectively as 1.50~2.89 and 1.61~2.72 for both of the static bearing capacity formula and the Meyerhof method. The target reliability indices are selected as 2.0 and 2.33 for group pile case and 2.5 for single pile case, based on the reliability level of the current design practice and considering redundancy of pile group, acceptable risk level, construction quality control, and significance of individual structure.