The potential of quality control in structural safety: A case study on shear resistance models without shear reinforcement

Abstract

Normally, quality control strategies are used to verify whether a produced structural building material complies with the specified properties. In general, quality control has a favourable effect on the outgoing distributions of material and geometric properties of incoming inspected batches. Previous studies concerning concrete compressive strength demonstrated that this effect could influence the reliability level of concrete structures. Such benefits can be quantified by using Bayesian statistics in combination with reliability-based techniques such as First or Second Order Reliability Methods (Level II methods) or simulation methods as Crude Monte Carlo or Monte Carlo methods with variance reduction (Level III methods). Presented as a case study, this paper aims to illustrate the influence of quality control on the structural safety of a steel reinforced beam verified for shear resistance without shear reinforcement according to DIN EN 1992-1-1+NA. The positive results on the structural safety of beams highlight the relevance of considering quality control information in safety assessments and their potential to unlock structural safety margins.