Method of a new iteration scheme combined with Kriging model for structural reliability evaluation

The first order reliability method (FORM) is widely adopted for structural reliability evaluation due to its numerical efficiency. Concerning the issue of FORM often failing to converge when the limit state function (LSF) behaves high nonlinearity, a new iteration scheme called “rotated gradient algorithm (RGA)” is proposed and combined with Kriging model to evaluate the reliability of implicit performance function. In this paper, the Kriging model is applied to approximate the real LSF first. Then the scheme of RGA, constructed in terms of gradient information of two adjacent design points obtained during the process of calculation, is used to calculate the reliability index. Numerical examples show the validity in convergence and accuracy of the proposed method for arbitrary nonlinear performance function.