The consumption of construction materials and the pollution caused by their production can be reduced by the use of reliable adaptive load-bearing structures. Adaptive load-bearing structures are able to adapt to different load cases by specifically manipulating internal stresses using actuators installed in the structure. One main aspect of quality is reliability. A verification of reliability, and thus the safety of conventional structures, was a design issue. When it comes to adaptive load-bearing structures, the material savings reduce the stiffness of the structure, whereby integrated actuators with sensors and a control take over the stiffening. This article explains why the conventional design process is not sufficient for adaptive load-bearing structures and proposes a method for demonstrating improved reliability and environmental sustainability. For this purpose, an exemplary adaptive load-bearing structure is introduced. A linear elastic model, simulating tension in the elements of the adaptive load-bearing structure, supports the analysis. By means of a representative local load-spectrum, the operating life is estimated based on Woehler curves given by the Eurocode for the critical notches. Environmental sustainability is increased by including reliability and sustainability in design. For an exemplary high-rise adaptive load-bearing structure, this increase is more than 50%.

Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) offers the potential to increase the acceptance of adaptive structures and to operate them in an optimal way. With suitable design and proper operation, adaptive high-rise structures enable significant increases in sustainability and service life extensions compared to passive high-rise buildings. The control loop for PHM provides a systematic overview of the contents related to PHM and their sequence. However, a framework is required for application to a complex adaptive system. Such a framework is presented in this paper. The framework is divided into the areas of system analysis and modeling as well as the PHM solution. A systematic approach is used to analyze the system and create the basis for full integration of all functional domains. This is then used in modeling to develop an adapted model structure. Finally, the PHM solution looks at the details of the approaches for diagnosis, prognosis, and health management.