• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.8
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• pp.921-927
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• 2012

Reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) can be used to determine the reliability of a system by means of probabilistic design criteria, i.e., the possibility of failure considering stochastic features of design variables and input parameters. To assure these criteria, various reliability analysis methods have been developed. Most of these methods assume that distribution functions are continuous. However, in real problems, because real data is often discrete in form, it is important to estimate the distributions for discrete information during reliability analysis. In this study, we employ the Akaike information criterion (AIC) method for reliability analysis to determine the best estimated distribution for discrete information and we suggest an RBDO method using AIC. Mathematical and engineering examples are illustrated to verify the proposed method.