Reliability and Reliability-Based Design Optimization

Authors: VEDAT TOĞAN, AYŞE T. DALOĞLU

Abstract: Reliability is often understood as the probability that a structure will not fail to perform its intended function. In this paper, the general formulation of consistent evaluation of the safety of structures and the associated methods of analysis are reviewed. After the reliability analysis of a cantilever beam is demonstrated, the methodology of reliability-based optimization and the related problem are discussed. A typical 2D roof truss system is optimized by various optimization methods, such as Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP), Evolution Strategy (EVOL), and Genetic Algorithms (GA). It is concluded that the algorithms work well and an efficient design of the roof truss is achieved under the constraint of the failure probabilities of structural element.

Keywords: Optimization, Reliability, Reliability-based design optimization, Truss, Evolutionary computation

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