| Abstract: | This paper describes a stochastic finite element method using the first-order approximation at a failure point of a set of random variables. The method is extended to equivalent normal represtation of non-normal distributions and offers two advantages: (1) It gives a consistent measure of failure probability for the limit-states defined in terms of different but equivalent performance function formulations, (2). It can be applied to reliability analysis for non-normal variants. Results using this method are compared favorably with that of Monte Carlo simulation in a simple example. Furthermore, this method will be applied to earth slope stability analysis to give probability levels for local and global failures on a potential failure surface. |
