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A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
It is not possible to read the various papers and discussions which appear in America upon specifications for and stresses in bridges without perceiving that bridges form a subject which receives a large amount of the attention of American Engineers. To the present writer it appears that the tendency of modern American and the best English practice is towards a reduction in the amount of the so-called factor of safety which it has now become fashionable to call the factor of ignorance, though it should more truthfully or euphoniously be termed the factor of uncertainty. This reduction is clearly to be made concurrently with a more accurate determination of actual as distinguished from apparent loading, and it is clear that should a final determination of the full effect of any and every load upon a structure be accurately made, the factor of uncertainty would be at once replaced by a marginal factor, which would serve to determine the true working strength of a structure under known load, and such working load would differ little from the loading that would cause final rupture. In fact, the present wrongly termed factor of safety might then be consistently so termed.
It is not possible to read the various papers and discussions which appear in America upon specifications for and stresses in bridges without perceiving that bridges form a subject which receives a large amount of the attention of American Engineers. To the present writer it appears that the tendency of modern American and the best English practice is towards a reduction in the amount of the so-called factor of safety which it has now become fashionable to call the factor of ignorance, though it should more truthfully or euphoniously be termed the factor of uncertainty. This reduction is clearly to be made concurrently with a more accurate determination of actual as distinguished from apparent loading, and it is clear that should a final determination of the full effect of any and every load upon a structure be accurately made, the factor of uncertainty would be at once replaced by a marginal factor, which would serve to determine the true working strength of a structure under known load, and such working load would differ little from the loading that would cause final rupture. In fact, the present wrongly termed factor of safety might then be consistently so termed.
Stresses in Bridges
Booth, William H. (author)
Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers ; 20 ; 137-150
2021-01-01
141889-01-01 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
Unknown
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