CORIOLIS FORCE AND THE DURABILITY OF INFRASTRUCTURES

The paper deals with the phenomena developed when along the surface of Earth to the well known Coriolis force some reactive forces are opposed. Since, usually at that level, the Coriolis force is a weak one only long lasting interactions become of practical interests. Regarded from this perspective the Coriolis force is first mechanically defined. Its actions in horizontal and vertical planes are further detailed. The conversion law of energy from an inertial system to a non-inertial one is also presented. As a tribute to History of Science the existence of Coriolis force is proved by the Foucault pendulum. Reactive forces to the Coriolis one are usually developed by engineering works like the protection walls of river banks. For such works the Coriolis force acts as a long lasting disturbing action. Like gravity it is a permanent action, but horizontally directed. During the long service of the works, due to imminent soil deformations some structural damages could occur. According to the clause 2.5 of Eurocode 1 the durability of engineering works should be evaluated. The Coriolis force is a determinist entity while the durability is a probabilistic one. As it was already shown in our paper [6] in 2011, this requirement can be reached with the aid of the Mathematical Theory of Reliability only. Considering several computing schemes for reactive forces, the paper is suggesting a range of numerical values for the risk factor. By including in durability analysis the influence of Coriolis force the results are more reliable and faithful to reality.