STRUCTURAL RELIABILITY METHODS FOR SEISMIC SAFETY ASSESSMENT - A REVIEW

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.