Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis using reliability methods

The Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA), by considering uncertainties in the input parameters (e.g. magnitude, location, wave path way…), aims to compute annual rate of exceeding various ground motions at a site or a map of sites given all anticipated earthquakes. Uncertainties may be originated due to inherent randomness of the phenomena or variability in the mean values of different models parameters which is mainly due to use of finite-sample size of observations. The first, in literatures, is commonly named aleatory uncertainty but the second is known as epistemic uncertainty. The total probability numerical integration, generally employed to calculate PSHA, only considers aleatory uncertainties, and variability in the models parameters is neglected to simplify calculation. In this paper, as an alternate of the total probability numerical integration, matured and standard reliability methods tailor to effortlessly consider both type of uncertainties are put-forward to compute site-specific PSHA. Then, as an application study, thepeak ground acceleration hazard curve for the site at which a historical bridge is located is developed and compare with those obtained from total probability numerical integration.