Metamodeling techniques have been used in robust optimization to reduce the high computational cost of the uncertainty analysis and improve the performance of robust optimization problems with computationally expensive simulation models. Existing metamodels main focus on polynomial regression（PR）, neural networks（NN） and Kriging models, these metamodels are not well suited for large-scale robust optimization problems with small size training sets and high nonlinearity. To address the problem, a reduced approximation model technique based on support vector regression（SVR） is introduced in order to improve the accuracy of metamodels. A robust optimization method based on SVR is presented for problems that involve high dimension and nonlinear. First appropriate design parameter samples are selected by experimental design theories, then the response samples are obtained from the simulations such as finite element analysis, the SVR metamodel is constructed and treated as the mean and the variance of the objective performance functions. Combining other constraints, the robust optimization model is formed which can be solved by genetic algorithm （GA）. The applicability of the method developed is demonstrated using a case of two-bar structure system study. The performances of SVR were compared with those of PR, Kriging and back-propagation neural networks（BPNN）, the comparison results show that the prediction accuracy of the SVR metamodel was higher than those of other metamodels under uncertainty. The robust optimization solutions are near to the real result, and the proposed method is found to be accurate and efficient for robust optimization. This reaserch provides an efficient method for robust optimization problems with complex structure.
