Potential role of reliability in forsensic geotechnical engineering.

Forensic geotechnical engineering addresses the posterior assessment of geotechnical design with the goal of ascertaining responsibility. An important factor in such an assessment lies in the appropriate recognition of the existence and magnitude of uncertainty in the design phase. In the case of deterministic design by means of the factor of safety, uncertainties are included in design implicitly only. Thus, in the posterior assessment of deterministic design, statistical and probability theory can only be applied by formulating hypotheses regarding expected performance and presumed level of uncertainty. This paper illustrates a statistical method for the back-assessment of responsibility of design in geotechnical failures, and provides useful guidelines for the indirect quantitative estimation of geotechnical uncertainty where the latter is not available.