German Proposals for the Revision of Eurocode 7 “Geotechnical design”

After implementing the Eurocodes, concerns were raised that the set of rules and regulations is not suitable for the designer’s day-to-day use. The first generation of Eurocodes consists of 58 codes with more than 5,200 pages. Moreover, practitioners have to cope with national supplementary codes. As a result, an “Initiative on Improving the Practicability of Technical Rules for Building Constructions” (PRB) was established by the German construction industry and associations of structural engineers in 2011. As part of the initiative, a Project Group for Geotechnical Design was established alongside groups for the other Eurocodes, with the aim of streamlining Eurocode 7 and reducing the number of design approaches and partial safety factors. The paper will analyse the shortcomings of the two parts of Eurocode 7 and present a concept for a more concise and user-friendly code. Furthermore, comparative calculations have been performed for standard geotechnical design applications to investigate the potential for European harmonization in geotechnical design. The results are described and it is shown how they can be incorporated in the revision of EC 7. Moreover, a new formula for verifying geotechnical ultimate limit states is presented which formally covers all design approaches and also enables other parameters such as consequence classes, human error etc. to be incorporated by applying different multiplicative partial safety factors.