Abstract

This study provides a novel method for reliability analysis of structural systems. Its main feature is the decomposition of an original multiple limit states reliability problem into the sum of a number of single limit state reliability problems. An exact equation is derived for the evaluation of the probability of system failure under three assumptions: the number of system failure modes is finite, the structural system is subjected to mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive failure modes, and components connected in parallel have perfectly correlated failures with causal relationship. The validity of the derivation is demonstrated mathematically. The concept of global probability of system failure is introduced to assess the reliability of structural systems subjected to multiple loading conditions. Example applications are presented. The results show that the proposed method is effective for a large variety of structural systems and can be applied considering either all the failure modes or only the dominant ones.

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