A. Soprano¹, F. Caputo¹

Structural Durability & Health Monitoring, Vol.2, No.1, pp. 51-68, 2006, DOI:10.3970/sdhm.2006.002.051

Abstract This work describes the results of the experience acquired by the authors during their participation to some among the European research programs with the aim to develop a probabilistic risk assessment procedure to analyse the spreading of fatigue-induced damage in typical aeronautical components. The several steps of the procedure are pointed out, and especially the modelling of the damage evolutionary process; the initiation and the transitional probabilities, which characterize the passage from one damage level to a higher one, are fully characterized and their dependence from time and from the damage state of surrounding zones illustrated by various example results. More >

Yuan-Qi Li, Li-Ping Wang, Zu-Yan Shen

The International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences, Vol.16, No.1, pp. 13-14, 2011, DOI:10.3970/icces.2011.016.013

Abstract In structural design, sometimes analysis methods in available specifications cannot be used directly for new materials or new structural configurations. A common way is to test and check the behavior in question of the prototype units including complete or parts of structures, individual members or connections for design assessment. How to directly obtain the design capacity with an expected reliability level according to the related codes from test results is a critical issue. Currently, there isn't any explicit specification for the above issues in Chinese codes, and few references are available. In this paper, referring to Australian specifications for Cold-formed… More >

V.C. Santos¹, P.S. Lopes¹, R. Gärtner², A.B. Jorge¹

The International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences, Vol.4, No.2, pp. 53-58, 2007, DOI:10.3970/icces.2007.004.053

Abstract This work presents an approach for weight and reliability optimization of aeronautical armors. Military and police helicopters are usually exposed to highly risky situations, with a high probability for these aircrafts to be hit by projectiles. In this context, floor aircraft armor can be used to protect the crews' lives. However, the armoring of an aircraft causes an increase in weight. If this extra weight is poorly arranged, the changes in aircraft centroid position may even destabilize the aircraft. Thus, it is essential to design an armor not only to protect the aircraft, but also not to conflict with aircraft… More >

Yang Li^1,*, Dongwei Yang¹, Jiangkun Zhang¹

Structural Durability & Health Monitoring, Vol.12, No.1, pp. 51-63, 2018, DOI:10.3970/sdhm.2018.012.051

Abstract Diffusion behavior of chloride ion in reinforced concrete under bending moment was studied by taking the ratio of bending moment to ultimate flexural capacity as load level indicator. The function relationship between load level and chloride ion diffusion coefficient was established, based on that the limit state equation of the chloride ion critical concentration and chloride ion concentration on surface of the steel bar was established. Then by applying Monte-Carlo method the corrosion probability of reinforcement under different load levels in splash zone was calculated. Calculation results demonstrated that compared with the durability reliability index considering loading effect, the reliability… More >

C. Jiang^1,2, X. Han¹, D. Li³

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.27, No.3, pp. 275-304, 2012, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2011.027.275

Abstract For optimization or decision-making problems with interval uncertainty, the interval comparison relation plays a very important role, as only based on it a better or best decision can be determined. In this paper, a new kind of interval comparison relation termed as reliability-based possibility degree of interval is proposed to give quantitative evaluations on "how much better" of one interval than another, which is more suitable for engineering reliability analysis and numerical computation than the existing relations. In the new relation, the range of the comparing values is extended into the whole real number field, and the precise comparison is… More >

M. Q. Chau^1,2, X. Han¹, Y. C. Bai¹, C. Jiang¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.27, No.2, pp. 128-142, 2012, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2012.027.128

Abstract The first-order reliability method (FORM) is one of the most widely used structural reliability analysis techniques due to its simplicity and efficiency. However, direct using FORM seems disability to work well for complex problems, especially related to high-dimensional variables and computation intensive numerical models. To expand the applicability of the FORM for more practical engineering problems, a response surface (RS) approach based FORM is proposed for structural reliability analysis. The radial basis function (RBF) is employed to approximate the implicit limit-state functions combined with Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) strategy. To guarantee the numerical stability, the improved HL-RF (iHL-RF) algorithm is… More >

Mena E. Tawfik^{1, 2}, Peter L. Bishay^{3, *}, Edward A. Sadek¹

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.115, No.1, pp. 105-129, 2018, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2018.115.105

Abstract Monte Carlo Simulations (MCS), commonly used for reliability analysis, require a large amount of data points to obtain acceptable accuracy, even if the Subset Simulation with Importance Sampling (SS/IS) methods are used. The Second Order Reliability Method (SORM) has proved to be an excellent rapid tool in the stochastic analysis of laminated composite structures, when compared to the slower MCS techniques. However, SORM requires differentiating the performance function with respect to each of the random variables involved in the simulation. The most suitable approach to do this is to use a symbolic solver, which renders the simulations very slow, although… More >

Rongxing Duan¹, Yanni Lin¹, Longfei Hu¹

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.113, No.1, pp. 17-34, 2017, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2017.113.015

Abstract Fault tolerant technology has greatly improved the reliability of modern systems on one hand and makes their failure mechanisms more complex on the other. The characteristics of dynamics of failure, diversity of distribution and epistemic uncertainty always exist in these systems, which increase the challenges in the reliability assessment of these systems significantly. This paper presents a novel reliability analysis framework for complex systems within which the failure rates of components are expressed in interval numbers. Specifically, it uses a dynamic fault tree (DFT) to model the dynamic fault behaviors and copes with the epistemic uncertainty using Dempster- Shafer (D-S)… More >

Xuwen An^1,2, Jianguo Hou³, P.D. Gosling⁴, Dong Dai⁵, Long Xiao⁶, Xiaoyi Zhou⁷

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.107, No.1, pp. 1-25, 2015, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2015.107.001

Abstract Studies on the theory of structural system reliability includes identification of main the failure modes and calculation of inclusive failure probabilities for the structural system. The efficient and accurate identification of failure modes in structural systems is difficult and represents a key focus for research in system reliability. The fundamental theory of the branch and bound algorithm for stage critical strength is reviewed in this paper. Some deficiencies in this method are highlighted. Corresponding approaches to overcome these deficiencies are proposed. Calculated system reliability solutions to the classical model, a truss with 10 elements, indicate that the improvement measures proposed… More >

Damian Sokolowski¹, Marcin Kamiński², Michal Strakowski¹

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.99, No.3, pp. 209-231, 2014, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2014.099.209

Abstract The main issue in this paper is to present stochastic analysis of the steel plate girder with the corrugated web subjected to Gaussian random fluctuations in its web thickness. Such an analysis is carried out using the Stochastic Finite Element Method based on the generalized stochastic perturbation technique and discretization of structure with the quadrilateral 4-noded shell finite elements. It is numerically implemented using the FEM system ABAQUS and the symbolic algebra system MAPLE, where all the probabilistic procedures are programmed. We compare the perturbation-based results with these obtained from traditional Monte-Carlo simulation and, separately, analytical solution calculated by a… More >