Model-Based Reliability Analysis with Both Model Uncertainty and Parameter Uncertainty

Model-based reliability analysis may not be practically useful if reliability estimation contains uncontrollable errors. This paper addresses potential reliability estimation errors from model bias together with model parameters. Given three representative scenarios, reliability analysis strategies with representative methods are proposed. The pros and cons of these strategies are discussed and demonstrated using a tank storage problem based on the finite element model with different fidelity levels. It is found in this paper that the confidence-based reliability analysis considering epistemic uncertainty modeling for both model bias and model parameters can make reliability estimation errors controllable with less conservativeness compared to the direct reliability modeling using the Bayesian approach.