Robustness Analysis of Responses of Structures with Uncertain Parameters

In the engineering structures, the design parameters may be uncertain because of the manufacture errors and inaccuracy in measurement, etc. The uncertainties of structural parameters may lead to large and unexpected excursion of responses that may lead to drastic reduction in accuracy and precision of the operations. Uncertainties in the design parameters are often considered to ensure that the structure is robust with respect to response errors. The paper discusses the robustness of responses of structures with uncertainties, which are described with three models, the random, convex, and interval models. The three corresponding methods for estimating the upper and lower bounds of responses are given, and the upper bounds of responses are used to estimate the robustness of responses of the structure with uncertain parameters. The comparison of the three methods for robustness analysis is given and some important conclusions are drawn.