Application of kriging method to structural reliability problems

Approximation methods are widely used to alleviate the computational burden of engineering analyses. For structural reliability analyses, the common approach is to use the response surface method (RSM) based on the least square regression. However, another approximation method based on kriging has gained popularity especially in the field of deterministic optimization. However, the application of the kriging method to structural reliability problems has not been realized until recently. Therefore, this paper investigates the use of the kriging method for structural reliability problems by comparing it with the most common RSM. The effects of the kriging parameters are also examined on the basis of the P computation and fitting behavior. It can be deduced from the results given in this paper that using the most common approach in the literature to find the kriging parameters does not guarantee a good result for the structural reliability problems. As a result, some advantages as well as disadvantages of the kriging method are reported, based on the results obtained from the application of the kriging method to the examples from the literature. Finally, this paper suggests the points for which the kriging model could be improved to get better results for structural reliability problems. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.