Reliability of Geotechnical Structures in ISO2394

Kok-Kwang Phoon is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS). He is a Professional Engineer in Singapore and past President of the Geotechnical Society of Singapore. His main research interests include statistical characterization of geotechnical parameters and reliability-based design in geotechnical engineering. He is the recipient of numerous research awards, including the ASCE Norman Medal in 2005 and the NUS Outstanding Researcher Award in 2010. He is the Founding Editor of Georisk and Chair of TC304 (Engineering Practice of Risk Assessment and Management) in the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). He was former Chair of ASCE Geo-Institute Risk Assessment and Management Committee. He is Fellow of ASCE and Fellow of the Academy of Engineering Singapore.Johan V. Retief is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He was awarded DSc(Eng) and DEng degrees from Pretoria and Stellenbosch Universities and graduate degrees from Imperial College and Stanford University. His fields of interest are the development of risk and reliability to design standards as the basis of design, with applications to wind loading, structural concrete and geotechnical practice, amongst other related topics. As member of ISO TC98 he has been a member of the management group for ISO2394:2015 and is presently Convenor for the revision of the related ISO22111. He is a member of the SA Bureau of Standards TC98 on design standards, a fellow of SAICE and moderator of its journal and received the 2014 Jennings award for a geotechnical paper with Dr Dithinde.

"From a geotechnical perspective, the key departure of the current ISO2394:2015 from previous versions is the introduction of a new informative Annex D on “Reliability of Geotechnical Structures [...] The book unlocks the general principles of reliability as presented in this 4th edition of ISO 2394 for extended application in geotechnical practice effectively. The resulting systematic application of reliability based geotechnical design will consequently be soundly founded on the reputable international standard. It is a must-read for designing geotechnical structures in compliance with ISO2394."Book Review in the ISSMGE Bulletin (Oct 2016)"Structural and geotechnical engineers sometimes seem to live in different worlds. They use different words, different methods and different concepts. Usually the geotechnical engineer has only a very limited knowledge of steel and concrete structures while soil is an unknown material for the structural engineer. And yet: they both are working on the same structure and that structure can only function properly if all aspects are taken care of in a consistent way.When preparing the ISO 2394, Basis of Structural Design, the writing panel had a clear vision that this document should be valid and useful for all structural aspects of design and assessment, regardless of the material and including the foundation. In every chapter and in every statement it was checked whether this indeed was the case. A special annex was completely devoted to geotechnical aspects. It is good to see that this initiative has been picked up by the authors of this book, which is in the first place a reflection on the contents of ISO 2394, but also a very useful extension with data, methods and examples. It certainly also helps to close some of the gaps mentioned above.The book may be of a great help for everyone who wants to deal in a serious and systematic way with scatter and unc

• Reliability as a basis for geotechnical designGeneral principles on reliability according to ISO2394Uncertainty representation of geotechnical design parametersStatistical characterization of multivariate geotechnical dataStatistical characterization of model uncertaintySemi-probabilistic reliability-based designDirect probability-based design methods