
Well done for completing the course. We’ve covered a lot of ground in a relatively specialist topic so, by getting this far, you’ve given yourself quite a useful and relatively rare set of skills!

To briefly recap; we’ve reviewed the fundamentals of semi-probabilistic design and how characteristic values and partial factors are typically used to build a margin of safety into our designs.

We’ve reflected on the limited insight this provides into the likelihood that a failure will occur and introduced the concept of a limit state function as a means of modelling reliability and ultimately calculating the safety index of an element or structure.

We’ve covered two methods for calculating the safety index; the First Order Second Moment Method and the more versatile First Order Reliability Method. We’ve expanded the First Order Reliability Method using the Normal Tail Approximation so that we can tackle problems in which our variables can have a variety of probability distributions.

As we’ve been developing our understanding of the theory and implementing this through worked examples, we’ve also been building a small library of bespoke functions that have captured our various solution algorithms for easy reuse later on.

As the title of this short lecture suggests, we’ve reached an intermission or mid-point in our probabilistic analysis of structural behaviour. Understanding the theory and implementation of the First Order Reliability Method is a great first milestone. But we have more to cover.

## Part 2 - Next steps in our reliability analysis

In part 2, we’ll be exploring, among other things, **Extreme Value Distributions** for modelling lifetime extremes. This will give us much greater insight and ability to model and forecast the largest magnitudes of demand our structures are likely to experience during their design life.

We’ll also explore how **Monte Carlo Simulations** can be used to calculate probabilities of failure. As a numerical technique, this gives us even more firepower for tackling tricky limit state functions with non-standard and even empirical distributions.

## 🏆 Certificate of Completion and Feedback

Don’t forget to claim your course completion certificate to mark your achievement! This can come in handy for your CPD portfolio or simply if you want to post it to your LinkedIn profile. You can request your personalised certificate by following the link below.

### 🙏 Course Feedback and Reviews

If you have feedback about the course or would like to leave a course review, that would be really helpful. Your feedback allows me to improve my courses and your reviews help other people decide if the course is right for them. You can leave your review and feedback when completing your certificate request form linked below.

<Callout type="success">
	[To leave some feedback and request your certificate of completion, just fill
	out this form](/request-a-certificate). Remember to select the correct course
	from the dropdown menu.
</Callout>

So, that’s it for part 1 - I hope you found the course interesting and that it has helped you develop an understanding of structural reliability modelling.

Again, well done and I hope to see you on another one of my courses very soon.


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