AN INVERSE RELIABILITY METHOD AND ITS APPLICATION

A general method is presented for inverse reliability problems with mu ltiple design variables and constraints. Several examples are given to demonstrate the efficiency and applicability of the method, including some from earthquake and offshore engineering. For the former, the me an value and the standard deviation of the weight of a gravity-based p latform are obtained to satisfy two reliability constraints related to overturning and sliding on the seabed. For the earthquake application , both a linear and a nonlinear example are given. In the linear case, the mean values of the column stiffnesses in a multi-story elastic bu ilding are calculated to achieve specified reliabilities for individua l inter-story drifts. In the nonlinear case, the mass carried by a pil e foundation is calculated for a specified reliability associated with pilecap displacement. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.