On the reliability of structures equipped with a class of friction-based devices under stochastic excitation

This work presents a general framework for performing reliability analyses of involved structural models equipped with friction-based devices under stochastic excitation. An experimentally validated model that takes into account main sources of performance degradation that these devices experience during seismic events is considered. To deal with the variability of future excitations, a stochastic excitation model is adopted in the present formulation. First excursion probabilities are used as measures of system reliability. The associated reliability analysis is carried out by combining an advanced simulation technique with an adaptive parametric meta-model. The proposed framework is suitable for direct implementation in realistic applications. The effectiveness of the methodology is demonstrated by means of two application problems involving relatively large finite element models.