Moving least squares method for reliability assessment of rock tunnel excavation considering ground-support interaction

A practical approach is proposed in this paper for the reliability assessment of rock tunnel excavations using the moving least squares method (MLSM) and the uniform design. The failure probability is computed by the first-order and the second-order reliability method (FORM/SORM), which is based on the generated MLSM response surface (MLSM-RS) via an iterative algorithm. The proposed approach is first implemented in the analysis of a circular tunnel that consists of three limit state functions to illustrate the efficiency and accuracy of the approach. Then, the method is applied to a non-circular tunnel to demonstrate the feasibility and validity of the method for practical problems, in which numerical procedures are commonly employed to solve the implicit limit state functions.