An inverse reliability method and its application

A general method is presented for inverse reliability problems with multiple 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 mean value and the standard deviation of the weight of a gravity-based platform 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 building are calculated to achieve specified reliabilities for individual inter-story drifts. In the nonlinear case, the mass carried by a pile foundation is calculated for a specified reliability associated with pilecap displacement.