Structural Non-probabilistic Reliability Analysis Based on Imperialist Competitive Algorithm

A structural non-probabilistic reliability analysis model based on the imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) is proposed. In practical engineering, the independent variables of the limit state function are usually the structural responses, which, together with the gradients, need to be resolved. The proposed model could find out the global optimum solution through the competition among the empires, without any additional gradient information, showing a good feasibility in many kinds of optimization problems. When utilizing the penalty function method, the constraint domain is enlarged to the failure domain, overcome the difficulties of searching the optimum due to the former narrower constraint domain. A numerical example verifies the high precision and good feasibility of the model.