Reliability analysis of tunnel using least square support vector machine

•Building the LSSVM-based response surface for reliability analysis.•LSSVM-based response surface without the need for additional assumptions.•The proposed method is efficient and effective to the real project.

In the reliability analysis of tunnels, the limited state function is implicit and nonlinear, and is difficult to apply based on the traditional reliability method, especially for large-scale projects. Least squares support vector machines (LS-SVM) are capable of approximating the limited state function without the need for additional assumptions regarding the function form, in comparison to traditional polynomial response surfaces. In the present work, the LS-SVM method was adapted to obtain the limited state function. An LS-SVM-based response surface method (RSM), combined with the first-order reliability method (FORM), is proposed for use in tunnel reliability analysis and implementation of the method is described. The reliability index obtained from the proposed method applied to particular tunnel configurations under different conditions shows excellent agreement with Low and Tang’s (2007) method and traditional RSM results, and indicates that the LS-SVM-based RSM is an efficient and effective approach for reliability analysis in tunnel engineering.