• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.279-295
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• 2011

This paper develops a probabilistic methodology for the seismic reliability analysis of structures with random properties. The earthquake loading is assumed to be described in terms of response spectra. The proposed methodology takes advantage of the response spectra and thus does not require explicit dynamic analysis of the actual structure. Uncertainties in the structural properties (e.g. member cross-sections, modulus of elasticity, member strengths, mass and damping) as well as in the seismic load (due to uncertainty associated with the earthquake load specification) are considered. The structural reliability is estimated by determining the failure probability or the reliability index associated with a performance function that defines safe and unsafe domains. The structural failure is estimated using a performance function that evaluates whether the maximum displacement has been exceeded. Numerical illustrations of reliability analysis of elastic and elastic-plastic single-story frame structures are presented first. The extension of the proposed method to elastic multi-degree-of-freedom uncertain structures is also studied and a solved example is provided.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.6
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• pp.799-808
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• 2017

Failure of a redundant long-span bridge is often described by innumerable failure modes, which make the structural system reliability analysis become a computationally intractable work. In this paper, an innovative procedure is proposed to efficiently identify the dominant failure modes and quantify the structural reliability for a long-span bridge system. The procedure is programmed by ANSYS and MATLAB. Considering the correlation between failure paths, a new branch and bound operation criteria is applied to the traditional stage critical strength branch and bound algorithm. Computational effort can be saved by ignoring the redundant failure paths as early as possible. The reliability of dominant failure mode is computed by FORM, since the limit state function of failure mode can be expressed by the final stage critical strength. PNET method and FORM for system are suggested to be the suitable calculation method for the bridge system reliability. By applying the procedure to a CFST arch bridge, the proposed method is demonstrated suitable to the system reliability analysis for long-span bridge structure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.275-289
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• 2007

In this paper a brief overview of methods to assess the reliability of mechanical systems and structures is presented. A selection of computational procedures, stochastic structural dynamics, stochastic fatigue crack growth and reliability based optimization are discussed. It is shown that reliability based methods may form the basis for a rational decision making.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.549-567
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• 2015

A first-order moment method (FORM) reliability analysis is commonly used for structural stability analysis. It requires the values and partial derivatives of the performance to function with respect to the random variables for the design. These calculations can be cumbersome when the performance functions are implicit. A Gaussian process (GP)-based response surface is adopted in this study to approximate the limit state function. By using a trained GP model, a large number of values and partial derivatives of the performance functions can be obtained for conventional reliability analysis with a FORM, thereby reducing the number of stability analysis calculations. This dynamic renewed knowledge source can provide great assistance in improving the predictive capacity of GP during the iterative process, particularly from the view of machine learning. An iterative algorithm is therefore proposed to improve the precision of GP approximation around the design point by constantly adding new design points to the initial training set. Examples are provided to illustrate the GP-based response surface for both structural and non-structural reliability analyses. The results show that the proposed approach is applicable to structural reliability analyses that involve implicit performance functions and structural response evaluations that entail time-consuming finite element analyses.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.61-68
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• 1998

It has become important to evaluate the qualitive reliability and condition assessment of existing structural systems in order to establish a rational program for repair and maintenance. Since most of if existing structural system may suffer from defect corrosion and damage, it is necessary to account for their effects in fuzzy reliability analysis, In this paper, an attempt is made to develope a reliability analysis for damaged structural systems using failure possibility theory. Damage state is specified in terms of linguistic valiables using natural language information and numerical information, which are defined by fuzzy sets. Using a subjective condition index of failure possibility and information of the damage state is introduced into the calculation of failure probability. The subjective condition index of quantitative and qualitative analysis method is newly proposed based on the fuzzy set operations, namely logical product, drastic product, logical sum and drastic sum

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1991.04a
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• pp.34-42
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• 1991

This study is directed for the development of an efficient system-level Importance Sampling Technique for system reliability analysis of bridge structures Many methods have been proposed for structural reliability assessment purposes, such as the First-order Second-Moment Method, the Advanced Second-Moment Method, Computer Simulation, etc. The Importance Sampling Technique can be employed to obtain accurate estimates of the required probability with reasonable computation effort. Based on the observation and the results of application, it nay be concluded that Importance Sampling Method is a very effective tool for the system reliability analysis.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.233-240
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• 2000

Nuclear power plant structures may be exposed to aggressive environmental effects than may cause their strength and stiffness to decrease over their service lives, Although the physics of these damage mechanisms are reasonably well understood and quantitative evaluation of their effects on time-dependent structural behavior is possible in some instances such evaluations are generally very difficult and remain novel. The assessment of existing RC containment in nuclear power plants for continued service must provide quantitative evidence that they are able to withstand future extreme loads during a service period with an acceptable level of reliability. Rational methodologies to perform the reliability assessment can be developed from mechanistic models of structural deterioration using time-dependent structural reliability analysis to take earthquake loading uncertainties into account. The final goal of this study is to develop the reliability analysis of RC containment structures. The cause of the degrading is first clarified and the reliability assessment has been conducted. By introducing stochastic analysis based on random vibration theory the reliability analysis which can determine the failure probabilities has been established.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1999.04a
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• pp.229-232
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• 1999

Nuclear power plant structures may be exposed to aggressive environmental effects that may cause their damage mechanisms are reasonably well understood and quantitative evaluation of their effects on time-dependent structural behavior is possible in some instances, such evaluations are generally very difficult and remain novel. The assessment of existing steel containment in nuclear power plants for continued service must provide quantitative evidence that they are able to withstand future extreme loads during a service period with an acceptable level of reliability. Rational methodologies to perform the reliability assessment can be developed from mechanistic models of structural deterioration, using time-dependent structural reliability analysis to take loading and strength uncertainties into account. The final goal of this study is to develop the analysis method for the analysis for the reliability of containment structures. The cause and mechanism of corrosion is first clarified and the reliability assessment method has been established. By introducing the equivalent normal distribution, the procedure of reliability analysis which can determine the failure probabilities has been established.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.884-891
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• 2020

The collapse of bridges can cause massive casualties and economic losses. Therefore, it is thus essential to evaluate the structural safety of bridges. For this task, structural reliability analysis, considering various bridge-related uncertainty factors, is often used. This paper proposes a new computational platform to perform structural reliability analysis for bridges and evaluate their structural safety under various loading conditions. For this purpose, a software package of reliability analysis, Finite Element Reliability Using MATLAB (FERUM), was integrated with MIDAS/CIVIL, which is a widely-used commercial software package specialized for bridges. Furthermore, a graphical user interface (GUI) control module has been added to FERUM to overcome the limitations of software operation. In this study, the proposed platform was applied to a simple frame structure, and the analysis results of the FORM (First-Order Reliability Method) and MCS (Monte Carlo simulation), which are representative reliability analysis methods, were compared. The proposed platform was verified by confirming that the calculated failure probability difference was less than 5%. In addition, the structural safety of a pre-stressed concrete (PSC) bridge was evaluated considering the KL-510 vehicle model. The proposed new structural reliability analysis platform is expected to enable an effective reliability-based safety evaluation of bridges.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.425-431
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• 2001

In order to take account of the statistical properties of probability variables used in the structural analysis, the conventional approach using the safety factor based on past experience usually estimated the safety of a structure. The real structures could only be analyzed with the error in estimation of loads, material characters and the dimensions of the members. But the errors should be considered systematically in the structural analysis. Structural safety could not precisely be appraised by the traditional structural design concept. Recently, new approach based on the probability concept has been applied to the assessment of structural safety using the reliability concept. In this study, safety of structures will estimated by the reliability analysis with commercial structural software that has the tools of nonlinear elastic-plastic 3-D analysis. Experimental test result is compared to results from this research and Coan/sup 1)/ In this paper, AFOSM(Advanced First-Order Second Moment method) is applied with von Mises, Tresca and Mohr-Coulomb failure criterions. The reliability index β and probability of failure P/sub f/ can be obtained by following this practical procedure as judgement a safety of structures and necessity of reinforcing.