Finite Element-Based Structural Reliability Assessment Using Efficient Directional Simulation

Reliability analysis of structural systems often requires finite element (FE)-based simulation to estimate failure probabilities. Common simulation methods, even those incorporating variation reduction techniques, usually involve a very large number of FE analyses to achieve acceptable accuracy. A recently developed directional approach significantly improves the efficiency of directional simulation by utilizing deterministic point sets to preserve the underlying joint probability distribution of the random vector describing the structure and by employing neural networks to focus the simulation effort in the significant regions. This paper investigates the application of this method to structural system reliability analysis. The method is illustrated using deformation-based system limit states, proposed for performance-based engineering, for two plane steel frames.