Accurate Structural Reliability Analysis Using an Improved Line-Sampling-Method-Based Slime Mold Algorithm

Abstract

Line sampling (LS) is a robust and powerful simulation technique to reduce the computational burden provided by Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) for the reliability analysis of engineering structures. However, when dealing with highly nonlinear and implicit limit-state functions, LS yields instable results as nonconvergence or divergence. In this study, a novel framework that integrates the LS method with the slime mold algorithm (LS-SMA) is proposed to solve complex structural reliability problems. SMA is a new metaheuristic population-based algorithm inspired by the behavior and morphological changes in slime molds that can well solve multivariable optimization problems. In the proposed method, the determination of the important direction of LS is formulated as an unconstrained optimization problem according to the LS theory. Then SMA is employed to solve this optimization problem to decrease the computational cost. Thus, the LS-SMA is able to overcome the drawbacks of LS such as the local convergence and divergence. Seven numerical problems were utilized to investigate the LS-SMA applicability, where its performance was compared with MCS, subset simulation (SS), importance sampling (IS), LS, first-order reliability method (FORM), and first-order control variate method (FOCM). The results demonstrate that the proposed LS-SMA can be applied with high efficiency for solving the reliability problems that involve highly nonlinear or dimensional and complex implicit limit-state functions.