Reliability analysis of deteriorating structural systems

Reliability analysis of deteriorating structural systems requires the solution of time-variant reliability problems. In the general case, both the capacity of and the loads on the structure vary with time. This analysis can be approached by approximation through a series of time-invariant reliability problems, which is a potentially effective strategy for cases where direct solutions of the time-variant reliability problem are challenging, e.g. for structural systems with many elements or arbitrary load processes. In this contribution, we thoroughly review the formulation of the equivalent time-invariant reliability problems and extend this approximation to structures for which inspection and monitoring data is available. Thereafter, we present methods for efficiently evaluating the reliability over time. In particular, we propose the combination of sampling-based methods with a FORM (first-order reliability method) approximation of the series system reliability problem that arises in the computation of the lifetime reliability. The framework and algorithms are demonstrated on a set of numerical examples, which include the computation of the reliability conditional on inspection data.