Investigation of reliability analysis algorithms for effective reliability-based optimal design of electromagnetic devices

To extend the reliability-based optimal design to engineering electromagnetic problems, the essential prerequisite is to develop a numerically efficient method of reliability calculation. From a practical point of view, this study presents a comparative study on different algorithms of reliability analysis. For reliability analysis of electromagnetic problems, the author proposed one sensitivity-assisted Monte Carlo simulation (SA-MCS) method in the previous research. To seek a higher accuracy of reliability analysis, in this study, the second-order derivatives are incorporated into the SA-MCS method. About calculation of second-order derivatives (also called sensitivity analysis in the finite element analysis), a hybrid direct differentiation–adjoint variable method is applied. Finally, analysis performances of the suggested SA-MCS and traditional methods such as the reliability index approach and the performance measure approach are investigated through applications to analytic examples and a superconducting magnetic energy storage system.