Time-dependent reliability analysis with series expansion and equivalent-plane approach

Tu, Qing; Wang, Yu

doi:10.5194/ms-17-347-2026

Articles | Volume 17, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/ms-17-347-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/ms-17-347-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 1

Research article

|

26 Mar 2026

Research article |

| 26 Mar 2026

Time-dependent reliability analysis with series expansion and equivalent-plane approach

Qing Tu and Yu Wang

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Cumulative views and downloads (calculated since 26 Mar 2026)

Month	HTML	PDF	XML	Total
Apr 2026	89	35	6	130
May 2026	149	17	10	176
Jun 2026	7	4	1	12
Jul 2026	20	11	3	34
Aug 2026	21	10	2	33
Sep 2026	14	3	1	18

Latest update: 07 Sep 2026

Short summary

This paper proposes a fast way to estimate the probability that an engineering structure fails within a given time period when loads and properties vary with time. The method evaluates safety at a set of time points and combines these results to approximate the overall failure probability for the whole period. Tests on three examples show close agreement with large simulation studies while requiring far fewer model runs, which can support more efficient reliability assessment in practice.