Error control in member design

Available evidence suggests that design checking can significantly reduce the incidence of structural failures resulting from human errors in the design process. Since “real-world” experimentation is not possible, it is of interest to develop a model to simulate the effects of human error on a typical design task and also to model typical checking procedures. The development and analysis of these models is described in the present paper. The design task considered is that of member design for a rafter of a steel portal frame building. It was found that checking efficiencies between 0.6 and 0.9 are most effective in increasing structural reliability and that, often, only two separate design checks are necessary to virtually eliminate the incidence of structural failure due to human error.