Geotechnical reliability updating using stochastic FEM

In geotechnical sites, deformation measurements are commonly made during the construction process. In this paper, it is shown howinformation obtained during such measurements can be utilized to update the estimate of the reliability at future construction stages. A recently proposed method for Bayesian updating of the reliability with information of equality type is successfully applied in conjunction with a stochastic nonlinear geotechnical finite element model. Therein uncertainty in the soil material properties is modelled by non-Gaussian random fields. The conditional reliability is evaluated by means of an efficient adaptive Monte Carlo method, known as subset simulation. The approach is demonstrated through an application to a sheet pile wall at a deformation-sensitive geotechnical construction site.