Reliability evaluation of reinforced concrete arch bridges during construction based on LGSSA‐SVR hybrid algorithm

Abstract During the cantilever casting process of reinforced concrete arch bridges with cantilever cast‐in‐situ method, it is difficult to select representative training samples for reliability analysis due to its complex structural system. Many random variables and large computational sample size, this paper proposes to solve the reliability indexes based on the combination of the improved sparrow search algorithm (LGSSA) and the support vector regression (SVR) method. Firstly, random variables are selected according to the actual situation of the bridge structure. Then representative training samples are designed to be substituted into the finite element model through the homogeneous method. The resultant data samples are used to fit the functional function by the support vector regression. Then combined with the penalized function method to transform the nonlinear optimization into the problem of solving the extreme value of the function. Based on the improved SSA to solve the extreme value of the final function. Finally the reliability index of the structure is obtained. With the background of reinforced concrete arch bridge of 200 m, the method is used to analyze the reliability of its buckling cable stress, arch stress, buckling tower deviation and structural system reliability during the cantilever casting process. The results show that the overall structural reliability of the arch ring during cantilever casting is 3.502–3.608. The indexes of buckling cable stress reliability are 3.806–6.784. The indexes of arch ring stress reliability are 4.379–7.562, and the indexes of buckling tower deflection reliability are 3.608–8.123.