Structural Reliability Analysis Based on Imperialist Competitive Algorithm

A structural reliability analysis model based on the imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) is proposed. The reliability index defined by Hasofer and Lind is usually solved by iteration methods, or Monte Carlo simulation in practical work. However, it can also be expressed as a nonlinear constraint optimization problem. The ICA is a socio-political evolutionary algorithm which is good at finding the global optimum without the computation of gradients. This model uses the penalty function method to deal with the constraint function which is changed from the equality constraint to the inequality one. Two numerical examples verify the high precision and good feasibility of the model.