Reliability analysis for geotechnical problems via finite elements - Some preliminary results from a comprehensive study

This paper presents some preliminary results from a comprehensive study on the application of the finite element method for reliability analysis in geotechnics. Some remarks on the stochastic nature of soil properties are given together with typical values for their stochastic modeling. A numerical procedure for solving geotechnical problems taking into account various distributions of soil properties is shown. A finite-element code is used to process the input variables and determine the input parameters for the performance function. On a reinforced slope the practicability of the suggested procedure is shown. To evaluate the calculation system-parameters are chosen and performance functions are defined. A simple second moment format is applied to determine the probability of failure.