An extended recursive decomposition algorithm for dynamic seismic reliability evaluation of lifeline networks with dependent component failures

Abstract An extended recursive decomposition algorithm (e-RDA) is proposed to evaluate the dynamic seismic reliabilities of the complex and/or large-sized lifeline network systems with dependent component failures. To effectively analyze statistical dependence of failures of system components, multivariate extreme value response distributions of the components and joint occurrence probabilities of the (disjoint) shortest paths and cuts of systems, a multivariate Gumbel Copula is developed and introduced into the original recursive decomposition algorithm (RDA). Based on the established joint occurrence probability formula of the paths and cuts, two techniques that may accelerate convergence of the upper and lower reliability bounds of complex and/or large-sized systems are developed and embedded into the RDA. Illustrative examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy, effectiveness and use of the extended RDA for the node weight (only node-type components may fail), edge weight (only line-type components may fail) and general weight (both node- and line-type components may fail) lifeline network systems.