An LSTM-Based Ensemble Learning Approach for Time-Dependent Reliability Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mingyang Li ◽  
Zequn Wang

Abstract This paper presents a long short-term memory (LSTM)-based ensemble learning approach for time-dependent reliability analysis. An LSTM network is first adopted to learn system dynamics for a specific setting with a fixed realization of time-independent random variables and stochastic processes. By randomly sampling the time-independent random variables, multiple LSTM networks can be trained and leveraged with the Gaussian process (GP) regression to construct a global surrogate model for the time-dependent limit state function. In detail, a set of augmented data is first generated by the LSTM networks and then utilized for GP modeling to estimate system responses under time-dependent uncertainties. With the GP models, the time-dependent system reliability can be approximated directly by sampling-based methods such as the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS). Three case studies are introduced to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed approach.

Author(s):  
Mingyang Li ◽  
Zequn Wang

Abstract This paper presents a long short-term memory (LSTM)-based ensemble learning framework for time-dependent reliability analysis. To deal with the time-dependent uncertainties, a LSTM network is first adopted to capture the system dynamics. As a result, time-dependent system responses for random realizations of stochastic processes can be accurately predicted by the LSTM. With realizations of the random variables and stochastic processes, multiple LSTMs are trained for generating a set of augmented data. Then a deep feedforward neural network (DFN) is employed to ensemble the knowledge extracted from LSTMs and generate a deep surrogate for the original time-dependent system responses. To improve the performance of DFN in terms of accuracy, the Gaussian process modeling technique is utilized for architecture design, where the number of neurons in the hidden layer is determined by minimizing the validation loss. With the DFN, the time-dependent system reliability can be directly approximated by using the Monte Carlo simulation. Two case studies are introduced to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed approach.


Algorithms ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 229
Author(s):  
Fangyi Li ◽  
Yufei Yan ◽  
Jianhua Rong ◽  
Houyao Zhu

In practical engineering, due to the lack of information, it is impossible to accurately determine the distribution of all variables. Therefore, time-variant reliability problems with both random and interval variables may be encountered. However, this kind of problem usually involves a complex multilevel nested optimization problem, which leads to a substantial computational burden, and it is difficult to meet the requirements of complex engineering problem analysis. This study proposes a decoupling strategy to efficiently analyze the time-variant reliability based on the mixed uncertainty model. The interval variables are treated with independent random variables that are uniformly distributed in their respective intervals. Then the time-variant reliability-equivalent model, containing only random variables, is established, to avoid multi-layer nesting optimization. The stochastic process is first discretized to obtain several static limit state functions at different times. The time-variant reliability problem is changed into the conventional time-invariant system reliability problem. First order reliability analysis method (FORM) is used to analyze the reliability of each time. Thus, an efficient and robust convergence hybrid time-variant reliability calculation algorithm is proposed based on the equivalent model. Finally, numerical examples shows the effectiveness of the proposed method.


Author(s):  
Zhen Hu ◽  
Sankaran Mahadevan ◽  
Xiaoping Du

Limited data of stochastic load processes and system random variables result in uncertainty in the results of time-dependent reliability analysis. An uncertainty quantification (UQ) framework is developed in this paper for time-dependent reliability analysis in the presence of data uncertainty. The Bayesian approach is employed to model the epistemic uncertainty sources in random variables and stochastic processes. A straightforward formulation of UQ in time-dependent reliability analysis results in a double-loop implementation procedure, which is computationally expensive. This paper proposes an efficient method for the UQ of time-dependent reliability analysis by integrating the fast integration method and surrogate model method with time-dependent reliability analysis. A surrogate model is built first for the time-instantaneous conditional reliability index as a function of variables with imprecise parameters. For different realizations of the epistemic uncertainty, the associated time-instantaneous most probable points (MPPs) are then identified using the fast integration method based on the conditional reliability index surrogate without evaluating the original limit-state function. With the obtained time-instantaneous MPPs, uncertainty in the time-dependent reliability analysis is quantified. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated using a mathematical example and an engineering application example.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianguo Zhang ◽  
Jiwei Qiu ◽  
Pidong Wang

This paper presents a novel procedure based on first-order reliability method (FORM) for structural reliability analysis with hybrid variables, that is, random and interval variables. This method can significantly improve the computational efficiency for the abovementioned hybrid reliability analysis (HRA), while generally providing sufficient precision. In the proposed procedure, the hybrid problem is reduced to standard reliability problem with the polar coordinates, where an n-dimensional limit-state function is defined only in terms of two random variables. Firstly, the linear Taylor series is used to approximate the limit-state function around the design point. Subsequently, with the approximation of the n-dimensional limit-state function, the new bidimensional limit state is established by the polar coordinate transformation. And the probability density functions (PDFs) of the two variables can be obtained by the PDFs of random variables and bounds of interval variables. Then, the interval of failure probability is efficiently calculated by the integral method. At last, one simple problem with explicit expressions and one engineering application of spacecraft docking lock are employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 346
Author(s):  
Pidong Wang ◽  
Lechang Yang ◽  
Ning Zhao ◽  
Lefei Li ◽  
Dan Wang

(1) Background: in practical applications, probabilistic and non-probabilistic information often simultaneously exit. For a complex system with a nonlinear limit-state function, the analysis and evaluation of the reliability are imperative yet challenging tasks. (2) Methods: an improved second-order method is proposed for reliability analysis in the presence of both random and interval variables, where a novel polar transformation is employed. This method enables a unified reliability analysis taking both random variables and bounded intervals into account, simplifying the calculation by transforming a high-dimension limit-state function into a bivariate state function. The obtained nonlinear probability density functions of two variables in the function inherit the statistic characteristics of interval and random variables. The proposed method does not require any strong assumptions and so it can be used in various practical engineering applications. (3) Results: the proposed method is validated via two numerical examples. A comparative study towards a contemporary algorithm in state-of-the-art literature is carried out to demonstrate the benefits of our method. (4) Conclusions: the proposed method outperforms existing methods both in efficiency and accuracy, especially for cases with strong nonlinearity.


Author(s):  
Zequn Wang ◽  
Pingfeng Wang

A primary concern in practical engineering design is ensuring high system reliability throughout a product life-cycle subject to time-variant operating conditions and component deteriorations. Thus, the capability to deal with time-dependent probabilistic constraints in reliability-based design optimization is of vital importance in practical engineering design applications. This paper presents a nested extreme response surface (NERS) approach to efficiently carry out time-dependent reliability analysis and determine the optimal designs. The NERS employs kriging model to build a nested response surface of time corresponding to the extreme value of the limit state function. The efficient global optimization technique is integrated with the NERS to extract the extreme time responses of the limit state function for any given system design. An adaptive response prediction and model maturation mechanism is developed based on mean square error (MSE) to concurrently improve the accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed approach. With the nested response surface of time, the time-dependent reliability analysis can be converted into the time-independent reliability analysis and existing advanced reliability analysis and design methods can be used. The NERS is integrated with RBDO for the design of engineered systems with time-dependent probabilistic constraints. Two case studies are used to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed NERS approach.


Author(s):  
Zhen Hu ◽  
Xiaoping Du

Maintaining high accuracy and efficiency is a challenging issue in time-dependent reliability analysis. In this work, an accurate and efficient method is proposed for limit-state functions with the following features: The limit-state function is implicit with respect to time, and its input contains stochastic processes; the stochastic processes include only general strength and stress variables, or the limit-state function is monotonic to these stochastic processes. The new method employs random sampling approaches to estimate the distributions of the extreme values of the stochastic processes. The extreme values are then used to replace the corresponding stochastic processes, and consequently the time-dependent reliability analysis is converted into its time-invariant counterpart. The commonly used time-invariant reliability method, the First Order Reliability Method, is then applied for the time-variant reliability analysis. The results show that the proposed method significantly improves the accuracy and efficiency of time-dependent reliability analysis.


Author(s):  
Dimitrios I. Papadimitriou ◽  
Zissimos P. Mourelatos ◽  
Zhen Hu

This paper proposes a new second-order Saddlepoint Approximation (SOSA) method for reliability analysis of nonlinear systems with correlated non-Gaussian and multimodal random variables. The proposed method overcomes the limitation of current available SOSA methods which are applicable to problems with only Gaussian random variables, by employing a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). The latter is first constructed using the Expectation Maximization (EM) method to approximate the joint probability density function of the input variables. Expressions of the statistical moments of the response variables are then derived using a second-order Taylor expansion of the limit-state function and the GMM. The standard SOSA method is finally integrated with the GMM to effectively analyze the reliability of systems with correlated non-Gaussian random variables. The accuracy of the proposed method is compared with existing methods including a SOSA based on Nataf transformation. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zequn Wang ◽  
Pingfeng Wang

A primary concern in practical engineering design is ensuring high system reliability throughout a product's lifecycle, which is subject to time-variant operating conditions and component deteriorations. Thus, the capability of dealing with time-dependent probabilistic constraints in reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) is of vital importance in practical engineering design applications. This paper presents a nested extreme response surface (NERS) approach to efficiently carry out time-dependent reliability analysis and determine the optimal designs. This approach employs the kriging model to build a nested response surface of time corresponding to the extreme value of the limit state function. The efficient global optimization (EGO) technique is integrated with the NERS approach to extract the extreme time responses of the limit state function for any given system design. An adaptive response prediction and model maturation (ARPMM) mechanism is developed based on the mean square error (MSE) to concurrently improve the accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed approach. With the nested response surface of time, the time-dependent reliability analysis can be converted into the time-independent reliability analysis, and existing advanced reliability analysis and design methods can be used. The NERS approach is compared with existing time-dependent reliability analysis approaches and integrated with RBDO for engineered system design with time-dependent probabilistic constraints. Two case studies are used to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed NERS approach.


Author(s):  
Zhifu Zhu ◽  
Zhen Hu ◽  
Xiaoping Du

The response of a component in a multidisciplinary system is affected by not only the discipline to which it belongs, but also by other disciplines of the system. If any components are subject to time-dependent uncertainties, responses of all the components and the system are also time dependent. Thus, time-dependent multidisciplinary reliability analysis is required. To extend the current time-dependent reliability analysis for a single component, this work develops a time-dependent multidisciplinary reliability method for components in a multidisciplinary system under stationary stochastic processes. The method modifies the First and Second Order Reliability Methods (FORM and SORM) so that the Multidisciplinary Analysis (MDA) is incorporated while approximating the limit-state function of the component under consideration. Then Monte Carlo simulation is used to calculate the reliability without calling the original limit-state function. Two examples are used to demonstrate and evaluate the proposed method.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document