Implementing statistical fitting and reliability analysis for geotechnical engineering problems in R

ABSTRACT

Reliability analysis and multivariate statistical fitting are valuable techniques that enhance the scientific basis of regulatory decisions in geotechnical problems. This study introduces the use of several R packages specifically developed to assist risk assessors in their geotechnical projects. Firstly, the fitting of parameterised models either to the distribution of observed samples or to characterise the dependence structures among variables, or both is presented. Secondly, the most popular reliability analysis methods, such as the first- and second-order reliability methods and the random sampling simulation method, are implemented in R. The efficiency of implementing these classical approximation methods is demonstrated through two example problems.

KEYWORDS:

• Soil
• probabilistic
• dependence
• fitting
• multivariate
• R

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCiD

Xing Zheng Wu http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3072-2592