A Novel Structural Reliability Method on the Basis of Gaussian Mixture and Scaled Unscented Transformation

2021 ◽  
Vol 147 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Xu ◽  
Yu Zhang ◽  
Ding Wang ◽  
Hongzhe Dai
Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 1820
Author(s):  
Mohamed El Amine Ben Seghier ◽  
Behrooz Keshtegar ◽  
Hussam Mahmoud

Reinforced concrete (RC) beams are basic elements used in the construction of various structures and infrastructural systems. When exposed to harsh environmental conditions, the integrity of RC beams could be compromised as a result of various deterioration mechanisms. One of the most common deterioration mechanisms is the formation of different types of corrosion in the steel reinforcements of the beams, which could impact the overall reliability of the beam. Existing classical reliability analysis methods have shown unstable results when used for the assessment of highly nonlinear problems, such as corroded RC beams. To that end, the main purpose of this paper is to explore the use of a structural reliability method for the multi-state assessment of corroded RC beams. To do so, an improved reliability method, namely the three-term conjugate map (TCM) based on the first order reliability method (FORM), is used. The application of the TCM method to identify the multi-state failure of RC beams is validated against various well-known structural reliability-based FORM formulations. The limit state function (LSF) for corroded RC beams is formulated in accordance with two corrosion types, namely uniform and pitting corrosion, and with consideration of brittle fracture due to the pit-to-crack transition probability. The time-dependent reliability analyses conducted in this study are also used to assess the influence of various parameters on the resulting failure probability of the corroded beams. The results show that the nominal bar diameter, corrosion initiation rate, and the external loads have an important influence on the safety of these structures. In addition, the proposed method is shown to outperform other reliability-based FORM formulations in predicting the level of reliability in RC beams.


Author(s):  
Zhenzhong Chen ◽  
Zihao Wu ◽  
Xiaoke Li ◽  
Ge Chen ◽  
Guangfeng Chen ◽  
...  

The first-order reliability method is widely used for structural reliability analysis; however, its accuracy would become worse for nonlinear problems. This paper proposes the accuracy analysis method of the first-order reliability method, which considers the worst cases when using the first-order reliability method and gives the possible value range of the probability of safety. The accuracy analysis method can evaluate the reliability level of the first-order reliability method when the failure surfaces are nonlinear. The calculation formula for the possible value range of the probability of safety is proposed, and its trend as the dimensions and reliability rise is also discussed in this paper. A numerical example and a honeycomb crashworthiness design are presented to validate the accuracy of the first-order reliability method, and the results show that they are located within the possible value range proposed in this paper.


2011 ◽  
Vol 230-232 ◽  
pp. 920-924
Author(s):  
Kun Feng Li ◽  
Zi Chun Yang ◽  
Gui Feng Liu

When insufficient data are available, probabilistic reliability method is invalid, but the non-probabilistic reliability method based on I-G (information-gap) model is a valid alternative. The most common I-G model, ellipsoidal-bound model, has been updated in this paper by acquiring information about span restrictions of uncertainty quantities and a corresponding non-probabilistic reliability index was proposed. The method for computing the reliability index was also given. The new model can reveal the influence of the span restriction of uncertainty quantities on structural reliability.


2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rami Mansour ◽  
Mårten Olsson

Reliability assessment is an important procedure in engineering design in which the probability of failure or equivalently the probability of survival is computed based on appropriate design criteria and model behavior. In this paper, a new approximate and efficient reliability assessment method is proposed: the conditional probability method (CPM). Focus is set on computational efficiency and the proposed method is applied to classical load-strength structural reliability problems. The core of the approach is in the computation of the probability of failure starting from the conditional probability of failure given the load. The number of function evaluations to compute the probability of failure is a priori known to be 3n + 2 in CPM, where n is the number of stochastic design variables excluding the strength. The necessary number of function evaluations for the reliability assessment, which may correspond to expensive computations, is therefore substantially lower in CPM than in the existing structural reliability methods such as the widely used first-order reliability method (FORM).


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4.35) ◽  
pp. 210
Author(s):  
Nurul Sa’aadah Sulaiman ◽  
Henry Tan

Maintenance and integrity management of hydrocarbons pipelines face the challenges from uncertainties in the data available. This paper demonstrates a way for pipeline remaining service life prediction that integrates structural reliability analysis, accumulated corrosion knowledge, and inspection data on a sound mathematical foundation. Pipeline defects depth grows with time according to an empirical corrosion power law, and this is checked for leakage and rupture probability. The pipeline operating pressure is checked with the degraded failure pressure given by ASME B31G code for rupture likelihood. As corrosion process evolves with time, Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN) is employed to model the stochastic corrosion deterioration process. From the results obtained, the proposed DBN model for pipeline reliability is advanced compared with other traditional structural reliability method whereby the updating ability brings in more accurate prediction results of structural reliability. The comparisons show that the DBN model can achieve a realistic result similar to the conventional method, Monte Carlo Simulation with very minor discrepancy.


Author(s):  
Zhi Shu ◽  
Torgeir Moan

This paper deals with the structural reliability analysis (SRA) of ultimate strength of a Capesize bulk carrier in hogging and alternate hold loading condition (AHL). The ultimate strength in hogging and AHL condition is very important for the safety of bulk carriers since the local loads due to internal cargo loads and external sea pressure can reduce the ultimate bending capacity. In the present paper, the characteristic ultimate bending capacity of the subject bulk carrier is investigated by nonlinear finite element (FE) analysis and the characteristic value of the global and local loads are determined in accordance with the Common Structural Rules for bulk carriers (CSR-BC). The uncertainties associated with the loading capacity and load effects are appropriately modelled. The First Order Reliability Method (FORM) is adopted to calculate the annual probability of failure of this bulk carrier in hogging and AHL condition. The effect of heavy weather avoidance on the global and local loads is also evaluated in the SRA. The results show that the local loads have a significant impact on the failure probability of such vessels in the hogging and AHL condition.


Author(s):  
Umberto Alibrandi ◽  
C. G. Koh

This paper presents a novel procedure based on first-order reliability method (FORM) for structural reliability analysis in the presence of random parameters and interval uncertain parameters. In the proposed formulation, the hybrid problem is reduced to standard reliability problems, where the limit state functions are defined only in terms of the random variables. Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) for hybrid reliability analysis (HRA) is presented, and it is shown that it requires a tremendous computational effort; FORM for HRA is more efficient but still demanding. The computational cost is significantly reduced through a simplified procedure, which gives good approximations of the design points, by requiring only three classical FORMs and one interval analysis (IA), developed herein through an optimization procedure. FORM for HRA and its simplified formulation achieve a much improved efficiency than MCS by several orders of magnitude, and it can thus be applied to real-world engineering problems. Representative examples of stochastic dynamic analysis and performance-based engineering are presented.


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