Recent developments in structural reliability that are relevant to ear
thquake engineering problems are reviewed. The paper begins with a dis
cussion of types of uncertainties and methods for their quantification
and analysis. The mathematical formulation of the structural reliabil
ity problem and existing methods for computation of failure probabilit
ies are then reviewed. Included are methods based on first- and second
-order approximations, simulation, and various hybrid methods. The top
ics of reliability sensitivity, updating of reliability, and the treat
ment of uncertainties in the estimation of reliability are discussed.
A brief account of recent developments that combine these probabilisti
c methods with the finite element method, together with two numerical
examples, conclude the paper.