Abstract
It is well-known that highway bridges are frequently under cyclic load; therefore, deterioration due to fatigue is one of the most important phenomena to be analyzed when determining a bridge safety margin. This paper studies how uncertainties related to fatigue models for concrete structures affect reinforced concrete element’s reliability, and the critical parameters in fatigue damage are investigated. To this end, a metamodel-based method is described and used to calculate the probability of failure and reliability index values of an application example. Metamodel-based methods have become an essential and efficient tool to determine structural safety as the possibility to decrease the computational cost and couple the reliability approach with nonlinear finite element analysis (NLFEA) allows a better estimation of structural reliability. Results show how the proposed method can reduce the computational cost of traditional reliability simulation methods, maintaining a good accuracy.