RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT OF STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS BASED ON DIRECTIONAL VECTOR SIMULATION TECHNIQUE

The new improved directional vector simulation method for analyzing the reliability of structural systems failure probability is researched. This paper also points out the defects of general directional vector simulation, and gives rise to a new higher accuracy approximate integral formula of structural systems failure probability. A new geometric meaning of characteristic function is obtained. A new simple method of generating uniformly distributed random vector samples inn-dimensional unit hyper-spherical surface is put forward and strictly proved. This method is easy to put into practice. Numerical examples are given to show the applicability and effectiveness of the suggested approach to structural systems reliability problems. Supported by Chinese Postdoctor Fund([1998]6, 23).