Reliability and Sensitivity Analyses of Structures Related to Eurocodes

This article focuses on researching new concepts of global sensitivity analysis, which are directly oriented to reliability and the limit states of structures. A primary case study is performed to compare total sensitivity indices oriented to probability and design quantiles. The obtained results show that although the values of the total indices may differ, the sensitivity ranking is the same. Contrast functions are a suitable theoretical basis for sensitivity analysis. Reliability sensitivity analysis can be performed by following the concept of standard EN 1990 using design quantiles. The design quantiles of resistance and load are a suitable alternative to directly computing the probability of failure. Global sensitivity analysis oriented to design quantiles has proven helpful in measuring the influence of input variables on structural reliability.