A Novel Concept for the Reliability Evaluation of Large Systems

A general purpose novel reliability analysis method to estimate low probability of failure events for large complicated real nonlinear structures excited by dynamic loadings including seismic loading applied in time domain is presented. In this approach, only tens instead of hundreds or thousands of deterministic evaluations at intelligently selected points are used to extract the required reliability information. It is a significant improvement over other methods currently being developed in other disciplines. Several areas of response surface method are improved and advanced factorial design concepts are presented. The method is elaborated with the help of two informative examples. The proposed method found to be robust, efficient, and accurate. It can be used to estimate reliability of large complicated civil engineering systems.