Normalized failure cost as a measure of a structure importance Original Research Article

Important structures such as nuclear power plants must have higher reliability against failure due to natural hazards than other structures. The appropriate design load level or the target reliability should be discussed in an engineering context to reach a consensus acceptable to society. Once an optimum reliability formulation is decided, the reliability is determined by a failure cost estimate. This paper proposes a normalized failure cost approach as a basis for discussion. Numerical examples are also described.