A survey for finding corrosion examples was performed on the underground steel piles buried for 19 years in the area of iron and steel making factory near Young-il bay. A failure probability model, which can be used to check the reliability of the corrosive mechanical element, based on Von-Mises failure criterion and the standard normal probability function is proposed. The effects of varying boundary conditions such as temperature change, soil-friction, internal pressure, earthquake, loading of soil, traffic loads and corrosion on failure probability of the buried steel piles are systematically investigated. To allow for the uncertainties of the design variables, a reliability analysis technique has been adopted; this also allows calculation of the relative contribution of the random variables and the sensitivity of the failure probability.