scholarly journals A New SORM Method for Structural Reliability with Hybrid Uncertain Variables

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.

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.


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.


2012 ◽  
Vol 446-449 ◽  
pp. 2321-2325
Author(s):  
Zhi Yong Zhang ◽  
Wen Bo Huang ◽  
Yue Fa Zhou ◽  
Tian Shu Song

The seismic reliability analysis of complex structure is carried out based on the response surface method and finite element method. Firstly, the appropriate design points are selected based on the mean values and standard deviations of the basic random variables. Secondly, the finite element method is employed to obtain the values of the limit state function of the complex structure. Thirdly, with selected design points and the obtained values of the limit state function of the complex structure, a polynomial function is constructed to approximate the original implicit limit state function. Then, with the established explicit polynomial limit state function and available methods of structural reliability analysis, the seismic reliability of the complex structure is estimated. Numerical analyses show that the established method is simple to use for the evaluation of the reliability analysis of complex structure.


2011 ◽  
Vol 243-249 ◽  
pp. 245-250
Author(s):  
Yan Feng Fang ◽  
Li Yan Chen ◽  
Hua Xi Gao

In this paper, the influence of correlation of variables on structural reliability is discussed. Using importance, condition and duality sampling techniques of Monte Carlo method, accepted accuracy can be obtained. For the limit state function, the correlation of random variables will influence structural reliability, and the influence can be described. For the case of positive correlation, reliability will increase as the the correlation coefficient raise. For the case of negative correlation, reliability will drop as the correlation coefficient raise. The level of influence depends on the slope of limit state equation in standardized coordinate. When k=1, the influence attains maximum intensity for both cases.


Author(s):  
Linxiong Hong ◽  
Huacong Li ◽  
Kai Peng ◽  
Hongliang Xiao

Aiming at the problems of implicit and highly nonlinear limit state function in the process of reliability analysis of mechanical products, a reliability analysis method of mechanical structures based on Kriging model and improved EGO active learning strategy is proposed. For the problem that the traditional EGO method cannot effectively select points in the limit state surface region, an improved EGO method is proposed. By dealing with the predicted values of sample point model with absolute values and assume that the distribution state of response values remains the same, the work focus of active learning selection points is moved to the vicinity, where the points are with larger prediction variance or close to the limit state surface. Three examples show that, compared with the classical active learning method, the proposed method has good global and local search ability, and can estimate the exact failure probability value under the condition of less calculation of the limit state function.


Author(s):  
Hsiang Y. Yeh ◽  
Houshang Masudi

Abstract Plutonium storage container is a very complex structure. There are many variables that affect the structural behavior of container. It is very difficult to obtain an explicit limit state function of this structure to perform the reliability analysis. This study used several techniques for the reliability analysis of container and consequently a suitable and efficient method is recommended for the container reliability study. The reliability of container was calculated using the proposed approach and the effect of random variables in the reliability of container is also assessed.


Mathematics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 209
Author(s):  
Bolin Liu ◽  
Liyang Xie

The Kriging-based reliability method with a sequential design of experiments (DoE) has been developed in recent years for implicit limit state functions. Such methods include the efficient global reliability analysis, the active learning reliability method combining Kriging and MCS Simulations. In this research, a novel local approximation method based on the most probable failure point (MPFP) is proposed to improve such methods. In this method, the MPFP calculated in the last iteration is the center of the next sampling region. The size of the local region depends on the reliability index obtained by the First Order Reliability Method (FORM) and the deviation distance of the standard deviation. The proposed algorithm, which approximates the limit state function accurately near MPFP rather than in the whole design space, can avoid selecting samples in regions that have negligible effects on the reliability analysis results. In addition, a multi-point enrichment technique is also introduced to select multiple sample points in each iteration. After the high-quality approximation of limit state function is obtained, the failure probability is calculated by the Monte Carlo method. Four numerical examples are used to validate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method. Results show that the proposed method is very effective for an accurate evaluation of the failure probability.


2012 ◽  
Vol 532-533 ◽  
pp. 408-411
Author(s):  
Wei Tao Zhao ◽  
Yi Yang ◽  
Tian Jun Yu

The response surface method was proposed as a collection of statistical and mathematical techniques that are useful for modeling and analyzing a system which is influenced by several input variables. This method gives an explicit approximation of the implicit limit state function of the structure through a number of deterministic structural analyses. However, the position of the experimental points is very important to improve the accuracy of the evaluation of failure probability. In the paper, the experimental points are obtained by using Givens transformation in such way these experimental points nearly close to limit state function. A Numerical example is presented to demonstrate the improved accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed method compared to the classical response surface method. As seen from the result of the example, the proposed method leads to a better approximation of the limit state function over a large region of the design space, and the number of experimental points using the proposed method is less than that of classical response surface method.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia J. Sarmiento Nova ◽  
Jaime Gonzalez-Libreros ◽  
Gabriel Sas ◽  
Rafael A. Sanabria Díaz ◽  
Maria C. A. Texeira da Silva ◽  
...  

<p>The Response Surface Method (RSM) has become an essential tool to solve structural reliability problems due to its accuracy, efficacy, and facility for coupling with Nonlinear Finite Element Analysis (NLFEA). In this paper, some strategies to improve the RSM efficacy without compromising its accuracy are tested. Initially, each strategy is implemented to assess the safety level of a highly nonlinear explicit limit state function. The strategy with the best results is then identified and used to carry out a reliability analysis of a prestressed concrete bridge, considering the nonlinear material behavior through NLFEA simulation. The calculated value of &#120573; is compared with the target value established in Eurocode for ULS. The results showed how RSM can be a practical methodology and how the improvements presented can reduce the computational cost of a traditional RSM giving a good alternative to simulation methods such as Monte Carlo.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bin Hu ◽  
Guo-shao Su ◽  
Jianqing Jiang ◽  
Yilong Xiao

A new response surface method (RSM) for slope reliability analysis was proposed based on Gaussian process (GP) machine learning technology. The method involves the approximation of limit state function by the trained GP model and estimation of failure probability using the first-order reliability method (FORM). A small amount of training samples were firstly built by the limited equilibrium method for training the GP model. Then, the implicit limit state function of slope was approximated by the trained GP model. Thus, the implicit limit state function and its derivatives for slope stability analysis were approximated by the GP model with the explicit formulation. Furthermore, an iterative algorithm was presented to improve the precision of approximation of the limit state function at the region near the design point which contributes significantly to the failure probability. Results of four case studies including one nonslope and three slope problems indicate that the proposed method is more efficient to achieve reasonable accuracy for slope reliability analysis than the traditional RSM.


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