SYSTEM RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT OF REDUNDANT TRUSSES USING IMPROVED ALGEBRAIC FORCE METHOD AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Calculation of system failure probability in large redundant structures is a time consuming process. Therefore in many researches it has been approximated in a conservative manner directly from probability of the failure of the members. This paper proposes three strategies to speed up the calculation of Pf of indeterminate trusses. In the first strategy based on the principles of probability, a criterion is established to discard some correlated paths. In the second strategy the force method is developed and applied due to its efficiency and speed in analyzing large redundant trusses. In the force method, the number of equations to be solved is the same as the degree of static indeterminacy which is usually smaller than the total degree of freedom used in conventional displacement method. Another advantage of the force method is the immediate access to member forces, which is required to be used in reliability analysis. In this research the force method formulation is improved and made it possible for the analysis of trusses of different topologies. The third strategy corresponds to employing an Artificial Intelligent agent to identify and control the repeated failure paths to avoid the use of extra computational time.

[1]  Wilson H. Tang,et al.  Probability concepts in engineering planning and design , 1984 .

[2]  R. Ranganathan,et al.  Generation of dominant modes and reliability analysis of frames , 1987 .

[3]  Vedat Toğan,et al.  Reliability and Reliability-Based Design Optimization , 2006 .

[4]  Yoshisada Murotsu,et al.  Approach to failure mode analysis of large structures , 1999 .

[5]  G. I. Schuëller,et al.  Benchmark study on methods to determine collapse failure probabilities of redundant structures , 1982 .

[6]  A. Kaveh,et al.  Sizing, geometry and topology optimization of trusses via force method and genetic algorithm , 2008 .

[7]  V. B. Watwood,et al.  Mechanism Generation for Limit Analysis of Frames , 1979 .

[8]  Toula Onoufriou,et al.  Reliability-based importance assessment of structural members with applications to complex structures , 2002 .

[9]  Anne S. Kiremidjian,et al.  Application of System Reliability Theory in the Seismic Analysis of Structures , 1992 .

[10]  Ikuyo Kaneko,et al.  On computational procedures for the force method , 1982 .

[11]  Ali Kaveh,et al.  Structural Mechanics: Graph and Matrix Methods , 1995 .

[12]  Sankaran Mahadevan,et al.  Ductile structural system reliability analysis using adaptive importance sampling , 1998 .

[13]  M. G. Salvadori,et al.  Numerical methods in engineering , 1955 .

[14]  G. Schuëller,et al.  A critical appraisal of methods to determine failure probabilities , 1987 .

[15]  Robert E. Melchers,et al.  Dominant failure modes in stochastic structural systems , 1984 .

[16]  Mark R. Gorman.  Automatic Generation of Collapse Mode Equations , 1981 .

[17]  Ali Kaveh,et al.  Size/geometry optimization of trusses by the force method and genetic algorithm , 2004 .

[18]  Palle Thoft-Christensen,et al.  Application of Structural Systems Reliability Theory , 1986 .

[19]  Ali Kaveh,et al.  Genetic algorithm for discrete‐sizing optimal design of trusses using the force method , 2002 .

[20]  Sankaran Mahadevan,et al.  Fast failure mode identification for ductile structural system reliability , 1994 .

[21]  A. H. S. Ang,et al.  Probability Concepts in Engineering Planning and Design Volume II Decision , 1984 .

[22]  Sanghyun Choi,et al.  Efficient method for calculation of system reliability of a complex structure , 2004 .

[23]  F Moses,et al.  RELIABILITY ANALYSIS FORMAT FOR OFFSHORE STRUCTURES , 1978 .

[24]  Andrzej S. Nowak,et al.  Reliability of Structures , 2000 .

[25]  Fabio Biondini,et al.  Optimal structural analysis , 2009 .

[26]  Fred Moses,et al.  Reliability of Structural Systems , 1974 .

[27]  I. Elishakoff,et al.  Probabilistic interval reliability of structural systems , 2008 .

[28]  Yoshisada Murotsu,et al.  Automatic generation of stochastically dominant failure modes of frame structures , 1984 .