RELIABILITY ANALYSIS OF SHALLOW FOUNDATIONS ON SANDS UNDER WORKING LOADS

This paper aims at estimating from a probabilistic point of view the level of safety with respect to Serviceability Limit States (SLSs) of shallow foundations on coarse-grained soils by means of the First Order Reliability Method (FORM). The analysis, of parametric type, deals with two calculation methods well adopted in current practice to estimate the settlements expected under working loads.The overall results obtained show that there are the prerequisites for the adoption, in the Technical Regulations in force in Italy, of alternative approaches (i.e. of a probabilistic type) to those currently envisaged.