scholarly journals Reliability Estimation for Highway Bridges

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nafiseh Kiani

Structural reliability analysis is necessary to predict the uncertainties which may endanger the safety of structures during their lifetime. Structural uncertainties are associated with design, construction and operation stages. In design of structures, different limit states or failure functions are suggested to be considered by design specifications. Load and resistance factors are two essential parameters which have significant impact on evaluating the uncertainties. These load and resistance factors are commonly determined using structural reliability methods. The purpose of this study is to determine the reliability index for a typical highway bridge by considering the maximum moment generated by vehicle live loads on the bridge as a random variable. The limit state function was formulated and reliability index was determined using the First Order Reliability Methods (FORM) method.

Author(s):  
Ho Hyun Lee ◽  
Hae Sung Lee

<p>This proceeding presents the calibration process of load and resistance factors for the design of cable members under a gravitational loads-governed limit state adopting optimization scheme. In reliability-based bridge design code, although the cable members show various behavior depending on the structural types of bridges, a proper reliability level should be satisfied by the load and resistance factors. A cable is a nonlinear component, thus tension of it also shows nonlinear characteristics. In this study, the limit state function is linearized, and the tension of each load component is normalized by total nominal tension. With the purpose of performing code calibration independent of structural types of bridges, the normalized tensions are parameterized by three load ratios. The target reliability indices of cable members are determined considering results of reliability analyses of existing cable-supported bridges in South Korea, and a target strength, which satisfies the target reliability indices exactly, is evaluated. Optimization problem to minimize an error between the target strength and nominal strength, which is calculated by the load and resistance factors, is defined, and optimal values of the factors are calibrated. Reliability analyses for the strength calculated from the optimal factors are performed and it is verified that the factors can lead to the design with a uniform reliability level.</p>


2014 ◽  
Vol 635-637 ◽  
pp. 443-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hai Tao Lu ◽  
Yu Ge Dong ◽  
Fang Ying Wu

According to the geometric meaning of the structural reliability index, an unconstrained optimization model with structural reliability index and design point is obtained by exterior penalty function method. The Powell method, golden section method and extrapolation method are used to solve the unconstrained optimization problem. The proposed method not has to deal with the any derivative of the limited state function, and can been used to obtain structural reliability index and design point of the strong nonlinear limit state function, which first-order reliability method (FORM) may fail to converge. Three examples are given to compare penalty function method with the difference methods. The results show that the given method is simply, effective and precise enough.


2014 ◽  
Vol 551 ◽  
pp. 648-652
Author(s):  
Xin Zhou Qiao

The two first order reliability methods (FORM) for computing the non-probabilistic reliability index, namely the mean-value method and the design-point method, are investigated. A performance comparison is presented between these two methods. The results show that: (1) the value of the reliability index of the mean-value method depends on the specific form of the limit state function, whereas the value of the reliability index of the design-point one does not;(2) the design-point method should be preferentially used in structural reliability assessment. The conclusions are verified by a numerical example.


2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. S. Balu ◽  
B. N. Rao

This paper presents an efficient uncertainty analysis for estimating the possibility distribution of structural reliability in presence of mixed uncertain variables. The proposed method involves high dimensional model representation for the limit state function approximation, transformation technique to obtain the contribution of the fuzzy variables to the convolution integral and fast Fourier transform for solving the convolution integral. In this methodology, efforts are required in evaluating conditional responses at a selected input determined by sample points, as compared to full scale simulation methods, thus the computational efficiency is accomplished. The proposed method is applicable for structural reliability estimation involving any number of fuzzy and random variables with any kind of distribution.


2011 ◽  
Vol 291-294 ◽  
pp. 2189-2194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Hong Gao ◽  
Ge Ning Xu ◽  
Ping Yang

The methods of the structural reliability mainly involve analytical approximate reliability index or numerical simulation, which using the finite element solver is time-consuming and large computation. Important sampling (IS) for structural reliability analysis based on radial basis functions neural network (RBFNN) is proposed in the paper, in which trained RBFNN can model the implicit function between the structure response and input random variables. And limit state function of structure is simulated with RBFNN model applied to calculate the design point. The results show that the RBFNN can simulate the limit state functions of structures. Besides, calculation procedure based on finite element solver for structural analysis is greatly reduced and the efficiency in structural reliability evaluation is improved.


2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 933-950 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Guthrie

limit state function is developed for the estimation of structural reliability in shock environments. This limit state function uses peak modal strain energies to characterize environmental severity and modal strain energies at failure to characterize the structural capacity. The Hasofer-Lind reliability index is briefly reviewed and its computation for the energy-based limit state function is discussed. Applications to two degree of freedom mass-spring systems and to a simple finite element model are considered. For these examples, computation of the reliability index requires little effort beyond a modal analysis, but still accounts for relevant uncertainties in both the structure and environment. For both examples, the reliability index is observed to agree well with the results of Monte Carlo analysis. In situations where fast, qualitative comparison of several candidate designs is required, the reliability index based on the proposed limit state function provides an attractive metric which can be used to compare and control reliability.


1984 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 760-770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hid N. Grouni ◽  
Andrzej S. Nowak

The paper summarizes the calibration procedure used to calculate load and resistance factors for the Ontario Bridge Design Code 1983 edition. The limit states considered include serviceability and ultimate limit states during service and in construction. The acceptance criterion is closeness to a predetermined target safety level. Safety is measured in terms of a reliability index. The results of calibration are discussed for composite steel–concrete girders, pretensioned concrete girders, post-tensioned concrete decks, and timber decks. The analysis of construction design criteria is demonstrated on segmental bridges. Key words: code calibration, bridges, reliability index, load and resistance factors, limit states.


2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 915-930 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.L. Sivakumar Babu ◽  
Vikas Pratap Singh

Existing soil nailing design methodologies are essentially based on limit equilibrium principles that together with a lumped factor of safety or a set of partial factors on the material parameters and loads account for uncertainties in design input parameter values. Recent trends in the development of design procedures for earth retaining structures are towards load and resistance factor design (LRFD). In the present study, a methodology for the use of LRFD in the context of soil-nail walls is proposed and a procedure to determine reliability-based load and resistance factors is illustrated for important strength limit states with reference to a 10 m high soil-nail wall. The need for separate partial factors for each limit state is highlighted, and the proposed factors are compared with those existing in the literature.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-241
Author(s):  
Shuang Zhou ◽  
Jianguo Zhang ◽  
Lingfei You ◽  
Qingyuan Zhang

Uncertainty propagation plays a pivotal role in structural reliability assessment. This paper introduces a novel uncertainty propagation method for structural reliability under different knowledge stages based on probability theory, uncertainty theory and chance theory. Firstly, a surrogate model combining the uniform design and least-squares method is presented to simulate the implicit limit state function with random and uncertain variables. Then, a novel quantification method based on chance theory is derived herein, to calculate the structural reliability under mixed aleatory and epistemic uncertainties. The concepts of chance reliability and chance reliability index (CRI) are defined to show the reliable degree of structure. Besides, the selection principles of uncertainty propagation types and the corresponding reliability estimation methods are given according to the different knowledge stages. The proposed methods are finally applied in a practical structural reliability problem, which illustrates the effectiveness and advantages of the techniques presented in this work.


2001 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 574-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrzej S Nowak ◽  
Chan-Hee Park ◽  
Peter Ojala

The reliability-based calibration procedures were applied to develop load and resistance factors for the Ontario Highway Bridge Design Code (1979, 1983, and 1991) and recently the Canadian Highway Bridges Design Code (2000). However, the load components for buried structures were not considered. The development of a statistical model for earth pressure requires a special approach. Therefore, this paper deals with the reliability-based calibration of the design code for buried (cut-and-cover) structures. A typical running structure consists of reinforced concrete walls forming a rectangular box section, while an underground station may have a one- to six-cell box. The major load components include earth pressure, water pressure and weight of the concrete. Other load components such as live load are relatively small. Statistical parameters are derived for representative structures and structural systems. The correlation between load components is estimated based on the available field data. Structural performance is measured in terms of the reliability index. Reliability indices are calculated for a representative spectrum of running structures and stations. In general, the reliability indices for existing buried structures are higher than those for bridges or buildings. The target reliability index has been selected on the basis of calculated reliability indices, comparison with other structures, and cost analysis (consequences of failure). The optimum load and resistance factors are calculated and recommended for the design code to achieve a uniform safety level.Key words: buried structure, code calibration, load models, reinforced concrete, reliability analysis, resistance models.


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