A CASE STUDY OF THE RELIABILITY DESIGN OF A REVETMENT BY STOCHASTIC FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

A Stochastic Finite Element Method (S. F. E. M.) is developed in order to apply it to optimum design of actual civil structures based on the reliability design concept. First, the validity of the method is confirmed by comparing the result by the S. F. E. M. with that by a Monte Carlo Simulation. Then, the method is applied to optimize design of an actual revetment.The result shows that, if one considers the correlation among surfaces, the weakest sliding surfaces concentrate to a small number of very narrow regions even if the variations of material constants and seismic forces are explicitly taken into the analysis. The result is of great practical value in this revetment design case because one can optimize design by only taking account of considering a few dominating sliding surfaces.