Efficient seismic reliability analysis of non-linear structures under non-stationary ground motions

Abstract The seismic reliability assessment (SRA) of complex nonlinear structures which possess structural and seismic uncertainty is an open challenge for academics and practical engineers. This paper proposes an improved maximum entropy method (IMEM) for the SRA of nonlinear structures. Non-stationary ground motions are first generated via a random-function-based spectral representation method. High-dimensional random variables in the ground motion simulation are then converted into two basic random variables as the high-dimensional probability space is reduced to a low-dimensional probability space. A two-step IMEM constrained with fractional moments is deployed to estimate the extreme value distribution (EVD) of the nonlinear structural dynamic system. An improved Latin hypercube sampling approach is also established to calculate the fractional moments of the complex nonlinear dynamic system. The first-passage probability of the structural nonlinear seismic response can be computed conveniently by a numerical integration using the EVD. Two numerical examples, 1) a three-story nonlinear shear frame structure and 2) a real-world high-pier continuous rigid frame bridge model, both of which exhibit strong nonlinearity under seismic action, are analyzed to show that the proposed method is efficient and accurate.