Bayes theorem–based and copula-based estimation for failure probability function

The failure probability function (FPF), aiming to decouple the nested-loop reliability-based design optimization solution into a single-loop optimization problem, has attracted a great deal of interest from designers and researchers. It is defined as a function of failure probability with respect to the design parameter. Among the estimation methods for the FPF, the Bayes theorem based on probability distribution function methods is competitive. It transforms the FPF as the estimation of the conditional joint probability density function (PDF) of design parameters on the failure event and the augmented failure probability. The augmented failure probability can be estimated by Monte Carlo simulation, while for the joint multi-dimensional PDF, the existing estimation methods are unavailable. To alleviate this issue, a novel FPF estimation method is proposed by Bayes theorem and copula. In the proposed method, the FPF is derived as a product of the conditional copula density and the augmented failure probability, in which the vine copula is employed to disassemble the multi-dimensional conditional copula density into several bivariate copula density functions, and they can be completed by the existing PDF estimation methods. In contrast to the existing Bayes theorem–based estimation methods for the FPF, the proposed method interprets the FPF as the dependence function between design parameters and the augmented failure probability in terms of copula, which involuntarily breaks the limitation of the multi-dimensional design parameters. In addition, the adaptive Kriging surrogate model is embedded in the proposed method to improve the efficiency of the proposed method. The presented examples demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method.