"The mean value of the design load on a foundation element is 6,000 kN, and its standard deviation is 1,200 kN. The estimated mean value of the bearing capacity is 12,000 kN, and its standard deviation 3,000 kN. If both the load and the resistance are Normally distributed, compute (a) the value of the reliability index B and (b) the probability of failure.", if the load and the resistance are positively correlated with p = 0.5.
Continuous Probability Distributions
Probability distributions are of two types, which are continuous probability distributions and discrete probability distributions. A continuous probability distribution contains an infinite number of values. For example, if time is infinite: you could count from 0 to a trillion seconds, billion seconds, so on indefinitely. A discrete probability distribution consists of only a countable set of possible values.
Normal Distribution
Suppose we had to design a bathroom weighing scale, how would we decide what should be the range of the weighing machine? Would we take the highest recorded human weight in history and use that as the upper limit for our weighing scale? This may not be a great idea as the sensitivity of the scale would get reduced if the range is too large. At the same time, if we keep the upper limit too low, it may not be usable for a large percentage of the population!
Trending now
This is a popular solution!
Step by step
Solved in 3 steps
