Global reliability sensitivity analysis based on state dependent parameter method and efficient sampling techniques

In order to efficiently assess the influence of input variables on the failure of the structural systems, an improved global reliability sensitivity analysis (SA) method is proposed in this paper. The new method is based on the state dependent parameter (SDP) method and the efficient sampling techniques. In the new method, the efficient sampling techniques are first used to generate samples that are more efficient for reliability analysis, and then the SDP method is further employed to estimate the global reliability sensitivity index by using the same set of samples as the reliability analysis. Two efficient sampling methods, e.g., importance sampling (IS) and truncated importance sampling (TIS), are employed in this paper, and the strategies of combining these methods with the SDP method for global reliability SA are discussed. Compared with the existing SDP method, the new method is more efficient for global reliability SA of structural systems. Three examples are used in the paper to demonstrate the efficiency and precision of the new methods.