A framework for the efficient reliability assessment of inelastic wind excited structures at dynamic shakedown

Abstract

The introduction of performance-based wind engineering has opened the door to the potential of designing wind excited structural systems with controlled inelasticity. The possibility of adopting the state of dynamic shakedown as a target system-level limit state is attracting growing interest. However, there is a lack of frameworks that enable the efficient assessment of the reliability of structural systems at dynamic shakedown. To overcome this limitation, a stochastic simulation-based reliability assessment framework is presented in this paper, in which the dynamic shakedown problem is formulated within the setting of distributed stress-resultant plasticity. In addition, the framework allows the estimation of traditional component-level first yield limit states therefore enabling direct comparison between reliabilities associated with system-level inelastic limit states and those aligned with current design practices. A full scale archetype is studied, from which it is seen that the limit state of dynamic shakedown occurs at load levels far beyond those inducing first yield, resulting in significant increases in reliability at dynamic shakedown as compared to component and system first yield. The straightforward estimation of the reliabilities through the proposed framework illustrated the potential of adopting dynamic shakedown as a target system-level limit state for design with controlled inelasticity.