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To evaluate failure probability of structures in the most general case is computationally demanding. The cost can be reduced by using the Response Surface Methodology, which builds a surrogate model of the target limit state function. In this paper authors consider a specific type of response surface, based on the Support Vector Method (SVM). Using the SVM the reliability problem is treated as a classification approach and extensive numerical experimentation has shown that each type of limit state can be adequately represented; however it could require a high number of sampling points. This work demonstrates that, by using a novel sampling strategy based on sampling directions, it is possible to obtain a good approximation of the limit state without high computational complexity. A second-order polynomial SVM model has been adopted, so the need of determining free parameters has been avoided. However …