Abstract: In this paper, a brief introduction is given to the developing status of modern reliability evaluation theory of a large scale structural systems, and a systematic analysis is made on those reliability evaluation methods which are widely used in the last decades. Emphasis is laid on the main principle of the cxact cvaluation theory of complex systems, and a prediction is made on the applicalion prospect of random finite elernent method, direct Monte Carlo simulation, response surface method and generalized...