Safety factors

The Compatible Stress Field Method is compliant with modern design codes. As the calculation models only use standard material properties, the partial safety factor format prescribed in the design codes can be applied without any adaptation. In this way, the input loads are factored, and the characteristic material properties are reduced using the respective safety coefficients prescribed in design codes, exactly as in conventional concrete analysis. Values of material safety factors prescribed in EN 1992-1-1 chap. 2.4.2.4 are set by default, but the user can change safety factors in the Code and calculation settings (Fig. 29).

\[ \textsf{\textit{\footnotesize{Fig. 29\qquad The setting of  material safety factors in Idea StatiCa Detail.}}}\]

Load safety factors have to be defined by the user in Combination rules for each non-linear combination of load cases (Fig. 30). For all templates implemented in Idea StatiCa Detail, partial safety factors are already predefined.

\[ \textsf{\textit{\footnotesize{Fig. 30\qquad The setting of  load partial factors in Idea StatiCa Detail.}}}\]

By using appropriate user-defined combinations of partial safety factors, users can also compute with the CSFM using the global resistance factor method (Navrátil, et al. 2017), but this approach is hardly ever used in design practice. Some guidelines recommend using the global resistance factor method for non-linear analysis. However, in simplified non-linear analyses (such as the CSFM), which only require those material properties that are used in conventional hand calculations, it is still more desirable to use the partial safety format.