A hierarchical hybrid strategy for reliability analysis of multidisciplinary design optimization

In order to improve the computational efficiency of reliability analysis for MDO, a hierarchical hybrid reliability analysis strategy is proposed. This strategy is composed of two layers, the sequential optimization and reliability assessment (SORA) method is adopted in the upper level to decouple the reliability analysis from MDO, which guarantee that the reliability analysis and deterministic MDO can be executed in a serial way. In the lower layer, the collaborative optimization (CO) strategy is integrated both in deterministic MDO and reliability analysis. Furthermore, based on the traditional theory of most probable point (MPP), the reliability analysis combined with the CO strategy is conducted concurrently. And also, the deterministic MDO is implemented in parallel with the CO strategy. Finally, the proposed strategy is validated with an illustrative example and the results are compared with the existing reliability analysis methods in MDO, showing that the proposed strategy is efficient and competent for evaluating design feasibility in MDO environment with uncertainties.