Slope safety factor search strategy for multiple sample points for reliability analysis

A linked list-based sifting method is proposed to calculate the slope safety factors of multiple sample points, which requires less time to calculate the failure probability of a slope. The proposed method combines the advantages of the sequential search and bisection search of the strength reduction method (SRM). In addition, the proposed method can sift out the failure sample points without the need to calculate the safety factors of all sample points, which is helpful for the Monte Carlo method to determine the failure probability of a slope with much less time. The proposed method can obtain the safety factors of sample points near the limit-state surface, which is helpful for the response surface method (RSM) to get the more precise result of reliability index with much less time. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.