A proposal on load combination for level I formats

This paper completes and makes operative results of previous investigations on the problem of calibrating the load enhancement factors to be applied in level I design processes. Some restrictive aspects of the previous approach are then removed by introducing a suitable piecewise linear idealization for the actual safety domain. The problem is also formulated in a dimensionless way. The results of such calibration studies are values of the load safety factors to be introduced directly in present semi-probabilistic structural codes. These values depend on the assigned target reliability level.