Time-Dependent System Reliability Analysis With Second-Order Reliability Method

2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Wu ◽  
Zhangli Hu ◽  
Xiaoping Du
Keyword(s):  
Reliability Analysis ◽  
System Reliability ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Time Dependent ◽  
Component Reliability ◽  
Reliability Method ◽  
Series Systems ◽  
State Functions ◽  
Time Dependent System

Abstract System reliability is quantified by the probability that a system performs its intended function in a period of time without failures. System reliability can be predicted if all the limit-state functions of the components of the system are available, and such a prediction is usually time consuming. This work develops a time-dependent system reliability method that is extended from the component time-dependent reliability method using the envelope method and second-order reliability method. The proposed method is efficient and is intended for series systems with limit-state functions whose input variables include random variables and time. The component reliability is estimated by the second-order component reliability method with an improve envelope approach, which produces a component reliability index. The covariance between component responses is estimated with the first-order approximations, which are available from the second-order approximations of the component reliability analysis. Then, the joint distribution of all the component responses is approximated by a multivariate normal distribution with its mean vector being component reliability indexes and covariance being those between component responses. The proposed method is demonstrated and evaluated by three examples.

Time-Dependent System Reliability Analysis With Second Order Reliability Method

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Wu ◽  
Xiaoping Du
Keyword(s):  
Reliability Analysis ◽  
System Reliability ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Time Dependent ◽  
Component Reliability ◽  
Reliability Method ◽  
Series Systems ◽  
State Functions ◽  
Time Dependent System

Abstract System reliability is quantified by the probability that a system performs its intended function in a period of time without failure. System reliability can be predicted if all the limit-state functions of the components of the system are available, and such a prediction is usually time consuming. This work develops a time-dependent system reliability method that is extended from the component time-dependent reliability method that uses the envelop method and second order reliability method. The proposed method is efficient and is intended for series systems with limit-state functions whose input variables include random variables and time. The component reliability is estimated by the existing second order component reliability method, which produces component reliability indexes. The covariance between components responses are estimated with the first order approximations, which are available from the second order approximations of the component reliability analysis. Then the joint probability of all the component responses is approximated by a multivariate normal distribution with its mean vector being component reliability indexes and covariance being those between component responses. The proposed method is demonstrated and evaluated by three examples.

Time-Dependent System Reliability Analysis Using Random Field Discretization

2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhen Hu ◽  
Sankaran Mahadevan
Keyword(s):  
Random Field ◽  
Reliability Analysis ◽  
System Reliability ◽  
Probability Of Failure ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Time Dependent ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
System Reliability Analysis ◽  
Reliability Method ◽  
Time Dependent System

This paper proposes a novel and efficient methodology for time-dependent system reliability analysis of systems with multiple limit-state functions of random variables, stochastic processes, and time. Since there are correlations and variations between components and over time, the overall system is formulated as a random field with two dimensions: component index and time. To overcome the difficulties in modeling the two-dimensional random field, an equivalent Gaussian random field is constructed based on the probability equivalency between the two random fields. The first-order reliability method (FORM) is employed to obtain important features of the equivalent random field. By generating samples from the equivalent random field, the time-dependent system reliability is estimated from Boolean functions defined according to the system topology. Using one system reliability analysis, the proposed method can get not only the entire time-dependent system probability of failure curve up to a time interval of interest but also two other important outputs, namely, the time-dependent probability of failure of individual components and dominant failure sequences. Three examples featuring series, parallel, and combined systems are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Time-Dependent Reliability Analysis by a Sampling Approach to Extreme Values of Stochastic Processes

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhen Hu ◽  
Xiaoping Du
Keyword(s):  
Stochastic Processes ◽  
Reliability Analysis ◽  
Extreme Values ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Time Dependent ◽  
State Function ◽  
Limit State Function ◽  
Reliability Method ◽  
Time Invariant ◽  
State Functions

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.

scholarly journals Integration of Statistics- and Physics-Based Methods—A Feasibility Study on Accurate System Reliability Prediction

2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhengwei Hu ◽  
Xiaoping Du
Keyword(s):  
System Reliability ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Joint Probability ◽  
Reliability Prediction ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
State Function ◽  
Component Reliability ◽  
Reliability Method ◽  
State Functions

Component reliability can be estimated by either statistics-based methods with data or physics-based methods with models. Both types of methods are usually independently applied, making it difficult to estimate the joint probability density of component states, which is a necessity for an accurate system reliability prediction. The objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of integrating statistics- and physics-based methods for system reliability analysis. The proposed method employs the first-order reliability method (FORM) directly for a component whose reliability is estimated by a physics-based method. For a component whose reliability is estimated by a statistics-based method, the proposed method applies a supervised learning strategy through support vector machines (SVM) to infer a linear limit-state function that reveals the relationship between component states and basic random variables. With the integration of statistics- and physics-based methods, the limit-state functions of all the components in the system will then be available. As a result, it is possible to predict the system reliability accurately with all the limit-state functions obtained from both statistics- and physics-based reliability methods.

scholarly journals Second Order Reliability Method for Time-Dependent Reliability Analysis Using Sequential Efficient Global Optimization

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhangli Hu ◽  
Xiaoping Du
Keyword(s):  
Global Optimization ◽  
Reliability Analysis ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Time Dependent ◽  
Efficient Global Optimization ◽  
State Function ◽  
Limit State Function ◽  
Reliability Problem ◽  
Reliability Method

Abstract Reliability depends on time if the associated limit-state function includes time. A time-dependent reliability problem can be converted into a time-independent reliability problem by using the extreme value of the limit-state function. Then the first order reliability method can be used but it may produce a large error since the extreme limit-state function is usually highly nonlinear. This study proposes a new reliability method so that the second order reliability method can be applied to time-dependent reliability analysis for higher accuracy while maintaining high efficiency. The method employs sequential efficient global optimization to transform the time-dependent reliability analysis into the time-independent problem. The Hessian approximation and envelope theorem are used to obtain the second order information of the extreme limit-state function. Then the second order saddlepoint approximation is use to evaluate the reliability. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are verified through numerical examples.

Time-Dependent System Reliability Analysis for Bivariate Responses

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhen Hu ◽  
Zhifu Zhu ◽  
Xiaoping Du
Keyword(s):  
Stochastic Processes ◽  
Reliability Analysis ◽  
System Reliability ◽  
Random Variables ◽  
General System ◽  
Time Dependent ◽  
Time Duration ◽  
Reliability Method ◽  
Bivariate Responses ◽  
Time Dependent System

Time-dependent system reliability is computed as the probability that the responses of a system do not exceed prescribed failure thresholds over a time duration of interest. In this work, an efficient time-dependent reliability analysis method is proposed for systems with bivariate responses which are general functions of random variables and stochastic processes. Analytical expressions are derived first for the single and joint upcrossing rates based on the first-order reliability method (FORM). Time-dependent system failure probability is then estimated with the computed single and joint upcrossing rates. The method can efficiently and accurately estimate different types of upcrossing rates for the systems with bivariate responses when FORM is applicable. In addition, the developed method is applicable to general problems with random variables, stationary, and nonstationary stochastic processes. As the general system reliability can be approximated with the results from reliability analyses for individual responses and bivariate responses, the proposed method can be extended to reliability analysis of general systems with more than two responses. Three examples, including a parallel system, a series system, and a hydrokinetic turbine blade application, are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

System Reliability Analysis With Autocorrelated Kriging Predictions

2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Wu ◽  
Zhifu Zhu ◽  
Xiaoping Du
Keyword(s):  
System Reliability ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Surrogate Models ◽  
First Order ◽  
Highly Nonlinear ◽  
Reliability Method ◽  
Reliability Methods ◽  
Computationally Intensive ◽  
Improved Accuracy ◽  
State Functions

Abstract When limit-state functions are highly nonlinear, traditional reliability methods, such as the first-order and second-order reliability methods, are not accurate. Monte Carlo simulation (MCS), on the other hand, is accurate if a sufficient sample size is used but is computationally intensive. This research proposes a new system reliability method that combines MCS and the Kriging method with improved accuracy and efficiency. Accurate surrogate models are created for limit-state functions with minimal variance in the estimate of the system reliability, thereby producing high accuracy for the system reliability prediction. Instead of employing global optimization, this method uses MCS samples from which training points for the surrogate models are selected. By considering the autocorrelation of a surrogate model, this method captures the more accurate contribution of each MCS sample to the uncertainty in the estimate of the serial system reliability and therefore chooses training points efficiently. Good accuracy and efficiency are demonstrated by four examples.

System Reliability Analysis With Second Order Saddlepoint Approximation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Wu ◽  
Xiaoping Du
Keyword(s):  
Normal Distribution ◽  
Reliability Analysis ◽  
System Reliability ◽  
Multivariate Normal Distribution ◽  
High Efficiency ◽  
Saddlepoint Approximation ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Multivariate Normal ◽  
System Reliability Analysis ◽  
Reliability Method

Abstract The second order saddlepoint approximation (SPA) has been used for component reliability analysis for higher accuracy than the traditional second order reliability method. This work extends the second order SPA to system reliability analysis. The joint distribution of all the component responses is approximated by a multivariate normal distribution. To maintain high accuracy of the approximation, the proposed method employs the second order SPA to accurately generate the marginal distributions of component responses; to simplify computations and achieve high efficiency, the proposed method estimates the covariance matrix of the multivariate normal distribution with the first order approximation to component responses. Examples demonstrate the high effectiveness of the second order SPA method for system reliability analysis.

Complementary Intersection Method for System Reliability Analysis

2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Byeng D. Youn ◽  
Pingfeng Wang
Keyword(s):  
Reliability Analysis ◽  
System Reliability ◽  
High Efficiency ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Approximation Formula ◽  
Joint Failure ◽  
System Reliability Analysis ◽  
Reliability Method ◽  
Reliability Methods ◽  
Intersection Method

Although researchers desire to evaluate system reliability accurately and efficiently over the years, little progress has been made on system reliability analysis. Up to now, bound methods for system reliability prediction have been dominant. However, two primary challenges are as follows: (1) Most numerical methods cannot effectively evaluate the probabilities of the second (or higher)–order joint failure events with high efficiency and accuracy, which are needed for system reliability evaluation and (2) there is no unique system reliability approximation formula, which can be evaluated efficiently with commonly used reliability methods. Thus, this paper proposes the complementary intersection (CI) event, which enables us to develop the complementary intersection method (CIM) for system reliability analysis. The CIM expresses the system reliability in terms of the probabilities of the CI events and allows the use of commonly used reliability methods for evaluating the probabilities of the second–order (or higher) joint failure events efficiently. To facilitate system reliability analysis for large-scale systems, the CI-matrix can be built to store the probabilities of the first- and second-order CI events. In this paper, three different numerical solvers for reliability analysis will be used to construct the CI-matrix numerically: first-order reliability method, second-order reliability method, and eigenvector dimension reduction (EDR) method. Three examples will be employed to demonstrate that the CIM with the EDR method outperforms other methods for system reliability analysis in terms of efficiency and accuracy.

A Time-Variant Reliability Analysis Method Based on Stochastic Process Discretization

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Jiang ◽  
X. P. Huang ◽  
X. Han ◽  
D. Q. Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Stochastic Process ◽  
Reliability Analysis ◽  
System Reliability ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Complex Structure ◽  
Random Variable ◽  
State Function ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Reliability Problem ◽  
Reliability Method

Time-variant reliability problems caused by deterioration in material properties, dynamic load uncertainty, and other causes are widespread among practical engineering applications. This study proposes a novel time-variant reliability analysis method based on stochastic process discretization (TRPD), which provides an effective analytical tool for assessing design reliability over the whole lifecycle of a complex structure. Using time discretization, a stochastic process can be converted into random variables, thereby transforming a time-variant reliability problem into a conventional time-invariant system reliability problem. By linearizing the limit-state function with the first-order reliability method (FORM) and furthermore, introducing a new random variable, the converted system reliability problem can be efficiently solved. The TRPD avoids the calculation of outcrossing rates, which simplifies the process of solving time-variant reliability problems and produces high computational efficiency. Finally, three numerical examples are used to verify the effectiveness of this approach.

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