Comparison of the Safety Formats for non-linear analyses of reinforced concrete columns

The subject of the study is based on a comparison of the different Safety Formats for non-linear analyses of reinforced concrete columns with increasing slenderness values. It is worthy to underline that the global safety factor estimate disregards both aleatoric and model uncertainties. However, since their independence, in this context the assessment has been conducted considering only the aleatoric uncertainty like the material mechanical properties. The main aim of the study is to analyze the results deriving from the different Safety Formats. To this purpose it is interesting to note how the expected outcomes change with the slenderness: this highlights an important dependence on the failure mode and the influence on the bearing capacity entity. Finally, considering Safety Formats as relatively simple methodologies able to capture the USL collapse load, a little computational cost-benefit analysis permitted to identify a hierarchy between Levels of Approximation that provides a theoretical order in terms of bearing capacity outcome for different Safety Formats.