Improving the first-order structural reliability estimation by Monte Carlo simulation

The first-order reliability method (FORM) is a well-known procedure for reliability analysis in the engineering community. It provides an efficient way to calculate the failure probability of a structure. However, it introduces an unknown error in the estimations for non-linear limit states. This paper seeks a correction for the FORM by employing Monte Carlo simulation. The proposed method combines the efficiency of FORM with the robustness of the Monte Carlo method. The merits of the proposed method are illustrated through benchmark examples. The results show the high accuracy of the proposed method and a substantial reduction in the number of samples compared with crude Monte Carlo.