This paper concerns the system reliability analysis of steel truss towers. Due to failures of towers, the assessment of their reliability seems to be a very important problem. In the analysis, two cases are examined: when the buckling coefficient is a deterministic value and when it is a random variable. The impact of failures of single elements on the structure reliability was investigated. Calculations of the standard deviation of the capacity and reliability indexes were made using author-developed programs in the Mathematica environment.

Steel truss towers are important structures in civil engineering, used as, for example, antenna towers, architectural towers, transmission towers, chimney towers, light towers, viewing towers, or water towers. In the paper, the latter structural type is analysed. Three types of truss towers with different topology are discussed. The towers are designed according to the standards. Next, reliability analysis is performed and the influence of type of truss topology on reliability is analysed. Reliability analysis concerns formulation of the limit state, calculation of failure probability and determination of reliability index. In the paper, the system approach is proposed, definitely more complete than that obtained using approximation-simulation methods. In the case of structures analysed in the paper, the types of reliability models are determined. Identification of reliability models relies on studies on the transformation of the safe structural system into the geometrically variable system (mechanism). The investigations made it possible to determine the kinematically admissible failure mechanisms which contain minimal critical sets of elements. In order to identify the mechanism, spectral analysis of the linear stiffness matrix is used. In the case of the towers of concern, the formulas specifying the number of mechanisms for any number of repeating sections are determined.

The paper concerns the analysis of reliability of three truss towers performed with the system approach. The first stage of the reliability analysis involved determination of the reliability index for trusses while assuming the same reliability of elements. In the second stage, assessment of the reliability was made according to Eurocodes. The impact of the wind load probability distribution and connection types in towers on their reliability was analysed. In the capacity function, the following random variables were taken into account: cross-sectional area, yield strength, modulus of elasticity, minimum moment of inertia, and length of the element.

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