A critical review on methods for time-dependent structural reliability

With increasing recognition of randomness and time-variance of variables in structural assessment, time-dependent reliability (TdR) methods have gained popularity among researchers and practitioners. This paper critically reviews commonly used TdR methods, with focuses on analytical solutions, hybrid solutions and simulation solutions. Through this review and analysis, research challenges for TdR methods are identified and future research directions are proposed. It is found that Rice formula-based solutions are accurate but have limited solutions, hybrid solutions are efficient but affected by non-Gaussianity and nonlinearity of limit state functions, and simulation solutions are robust but time-consuming for complex structure systems. It is also found that the effectiveness of TdR methods depends highly on the complexity of limit state functions and types of stochastic processes involved, in particular, the stationarity, Gaussianity and correlation. The contribution of this review is that different TdR methods are elucidated and future research directions are proposed.