Environmental Contour Lines for Design Purposes: Why and When?

Abstract

Methods of prediction of structural loads corresponding to a required target annual exceedance probability are reviewed. Particular attention is given to utilization of environmental contour lines for such a purpose. This approach is based on using short term methods for predicting adequate estimates of the q-probability response. The environmental contour line approach is a very convenient approach if complicated structural problems are considered. For such problems one will often have to involve numerical time domain analyses or model tests to reveal the short term probabilistic structure of the response maxima, making a full long term response analysis impossible for most practical problems.