Slope reliability analysis using a support vector machine

The first-order second-moment method (FOSM) reliability analysis is commonly used for slope stability analysis. It requires the values and partial derivatives of the performance function with respect to the random variables for the design. Such calculations can be cumbersome when the performance functions are implicit. Implicit performance functions are normally encountered when the slope is geologically complicated and the limit equilibrium method (LEM) is used for the stability analysis. To address this issue, this paper presents a support vector machine (SVM)-based reliability analysis method which combines the SVM with the FOSM. This method employs the SVM method to approximate the implicit performance functions, thus arriving at SVM-based explicit performance functions. The SVM method uses a small set of the actual values of the performance functions obtained via the LEM for complicated slope engineering. Using the SVM model, a large number of values and partial derivatives of the performance functions can be obtained for conventional reliability analysis using the FOSM. Examples are given to illustrate the proposed SVM-based slope reliability analysis. The results show that the proposed approach is applicable to slope reliability analysis which involves implicit performance functions. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.