A Wavelet Support Vector Machine-Based Neural Network Metamodel for Structural Reliability Assessment

Wavelet neural network (WNN) has been widely used in the field of civil engineering. However, WNN can only effectively handle problems of small dimensions as the computational cost for constructing wavelets of large dimensions is prohibitive. To expand the application of WNN to higher dimensions, this article develops a new wavelet support vector machine (SVM)‐based neural network metamodel for reliability analysis. The method first develops an autocorrelation wavelet kernel SVM and then uses a set of wavelet SVMs with different resolution as the activation function of WNN. The output of network is obtained through aggregating outputs of different wavelet SVMs. The method takes advantage of the excellent capacities of SVM to handle high‐dimensional problems and of the attractive properties of wavelet to represent complex functions. Four examples are given to demonstrate the application and effectiveness of the proposed method.