Response-surface-based structural reliability analysis with random and interval mixed uncertainties

Abstract

Traditional reliability analysis requires probability distributions of all the uncertain parameters. However, in many practical applications, the variation bounds can be only determined for the parameters with limited information. A complex hybrid reliability problem then will be caused when the random and interval variables coexist in a same structure. In this paper, by introducing the response surface technique, we develop a new hybrid reliability method to efficiently compute the interval of the failure probability of the structure due to the probability-interval hybrid uncertainty. The present method consists of a sequence of iterations. At each step, a response surface model is constructed for the limit-state function by using a quadratic polynomial and a modified axial experimental design method. An approximate hybrid reliability problem is created based on the response surface model, which is subsequently solved by an efficient decoupling approach. An updating strategy is suggested to improve the quality of the response surface and whereby ensure the reliability analysis precision. A computational procedure is then summarized for the whole iterations. Four numerical examples and also a practical application are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the present method.