Risk assessment under temporary use conditions

Abstract

<p>The present paper addresses the challenging issue of establishing acceptable risks or target reliability levels, taking account of temporary use conditions of structures. Acceptance criteria for building structure related-risks to persons obtained in prior studies are adapted to the special circumstances of non-permanent exposure of the building users. Thereby, the general principle followed is to maintain the same risk levels per time unit as for permanently occupied buildings. The adaption is based on the statistical annual fatality rate, a recently proposed life safety risk metric which allows for consistent comparison of risks across different societal activities and technologies. It is shown that the target reliability indexes taking account of the temporary use of buildings might be significantly higher than the values suggested for permanently used structures.</p>