Nikolay Kozak at the conference

On 24 October, the Russian University of Transport hosted the V International Scientific and Technical Conference “Design, Construction and Operation of Bridges, Tunnels and Subways”. The readings were dedicated to the memory of Lavr Dmitrievich Proskuryakov (1858–1926), a Russian bridge engineer.

Nikolay Kozak, Associate Professor at the SPbGASU Department of Transport Systems and Road and Bridge Construction, spoke at the conference with a report “The impact of accumulation of fatigue damage in flexible pin stops on the reliability indicators of steel-reinforced concrete superstructures.”

According to Nikolay Kozak, the topic of the speech echoed his report at the University of Minho (Guimarães, Portugal), given in May 2024. This time, Nikolay Kozak focused on the basics of the method for assessing the reliability of bridge spans through the determination of reliability indicators.

– Unfortunately, the method has not yet become widespread in Russian design practice. Unlike the practice of Western and Eastern countries, few of our engineers are familiar with it. At the same time, as often happens, the method was developed in our country. The possibility of numerically determining reliability indicators through reliability indices (in the original - "safety factors γ") was mentioned in the works of great scientists Aleksey Rufovich Rzhanitsyn and Nikolay Stanislavovich Streletsky in the middle of the last century. Nikolay Stanislavovich Streletsky, it should be noted, is the "father" of the modern approach to designing structures by limit states, widespread throughout the world, - said Nikolay Kozak.

The scientist's current research is designed to solve two problems. Firstly, to study the effects of fatigue of elements of the connection of steel beams and reinforced concrete slabs on the overall reliability of steel-reinforced concrete span structures. The second task is to study the capabilities of methods for determining reliability indices in general, with the prospect of their application to other tasks in the field of design and assessment of the current state of bridge structures.