Abstract
In 2011, the South African Loading Code (SANS 10160) was revised to align with international
standards and benchmarked against the Eurocodes. The factors of safety were derived using a target
level of reliability of (β = 3.0) as opposed to that used for the Eurocode (β=3.8). This target
reliability was in line with the previous code provisions of SANS 10160 and ISO 2394. In this
paper, a review of the load factors is made and it is shown that the current factors in the code
produce a uniform level of reliability for different dead load ratios. The paper then looks at the
development of the resistance factors for cold-formed steel for South Africa. The South African
materials standard for cold-formed steel (SANS 10162-2) was adopted from the Australian-New Zealand
(AS/NZS) standard and hence requires a calibration against the South African Loading Code. An
investigation is made in the variation of the
safety index with load ratio for different ratios of the mean resistance to the design resistance
(�̅/�� =
�̅/∅��) using the new load factors in SANS 10160. This is done for different dead, office live and
wind
loads for a given coefficient of variation. From the results, it is seen that the safety index is
reasonably
uniform with varying load ratio. For a given set of load factors and load combinations, the
uniformity in the safety index will depend, amongst others, on the level of the target safety index
and the coefficient
of variation of the resistance member. The resistance factors φ for use in the cold-formed steel
design
are thus recommended.