Structural reliability methods for seismic safety assessment: A review

Recent developments in structural reliability that are relevant to earthquake engineering problems are reviewed. The paper begins with a discussion of types of uncertainties and methods for their quantification and analysis. The mathematical formulation of the structural reliability problem and existing methods for computation of failure probabilities are then reviewed. Included are methods based on first- and second-order approximations, simulation, and various hybrid methods. The topics of reliability sensitivity, updating of reliability, and the treatment of uncertainties in the estimation of reliability are discussed. A brief account of recent developments that combine these probabilistic methods with the finite element method, together with two numerical examples, conclude the paper.