Reliability of Current Reinforced Concrete Designs

Recent trends in design standards development have encouraged the use of probabilistic limit states design concepts. This is in order to simplify the design process and render it consistent for different materials and construction technologies. The development of such criteria requires that a large amount of data be gathered for perusal by standards writing organizations. These data should provide a measure of performance or reliability of existing designs so that the standards group has a perspective of where different construction technologies stand with respect to one another. This paper contributes to the data base by assessing reliabilities associated with existing reinforced concrete designs and providing a brief comparison with steel designs.