Consideration of coupling of crack development and corrosion in assessing the reliability of reinforced concrete beams subjected to bending

•This study develops a reliability analysis system that incorporates the coupled degradation effects of crack development and corrosion progression for assessing the reliability of reinforced concrete structures.•This developed system is a computationally efficient approach as RNA is adopted to simulate chloride diffusion of cracked concrete.•This developed system can be used to assess the whole life performance of RC structures without the need for empirical deterioration models as it is developed based on physicochemical and mechanical models.•This developed system is a useful approach for assessing the corrosion failure probability of RC structures subjected to different loads.•This developed system is a useful method for assessing different effects – SCMs and environmental temperature – on the corrosion failure probability of RC structures.