• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제89권4호
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• pp.399-409
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• 2024

Assessment of existing concrete bridges is a challenge for owners. It has greater economic impact when compared to designing new bridges. When using conventional linear analyses, judgment of the engineer is required to understand the behavior of redundant structures after the first element in the structural system reaches its ultimate capacity. The alternative is to use a predictive tool such as advanced nonlinear finite element analyses (ANFEA) to assess the overall structural behavior. This paper proposes a new reliability framework for the assessment of existing bridge structures using ANFEA. A general framework defined in previous works, accounting for material uncertainties and concrete model performance, is adapted to the context of the assessment of existing bridges. A "shifted" reliability problem is defined under the assumption of quasi-deterministic dead load effects. The overall exercise is viewed as a progressive pushover analysis up to structural failure, where the actual safety index is compared at each event to a target reliability index.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제45권2호
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• pp.201-209
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• 2013

A new dynamic reliability analysis of structure under repeated random loads is proposed in this paper. The proposed method is developed based on the idea that the probability density of several times random loads can be derived from the probability density of single-time random load. The reliability prediction models of structure based on time responses under several times random loads with and without strength degradation are obtained by using the stress-strength interference theory and probability density evolution method. The resulting differential equations in the prediction models can be solved by using the forward finite difference method. Then, the probability density functions of strength redundancy of the structures can be obtained. Finally, the structural dynamic reliability can be calculated using integral method. The efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated numerically through a speed reducer. The results have shown that the proposed method is practicable, feasible and gives reasonably accurate prediction.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제28권1호
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• pp.1-18
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• 2008

The conventional design of bridge piers against scour uses scour equations which involve number of uncertain flow, sediments and structural parameters. The inherent high uncertainties in these parameters suggest that the reliability of piers must be assessed to ensure desirable safety of bridges against scour. In the present study, a procedure for the reliability assessment of bridge piers, installed in main and flood channels, against scour has been presented. To study the influence of various random variables on piers' reliability sensitivity analysis has been carried out. To incorporate the reliability in the evaluation of safety factor, a simplified relationship between safety factor and reliability index has been proposed. Effects of clear water (flood channel) and live bed scour (main channel) are highlighted on pier reliability. In addition to these, an attempt has also been made to explain the failure of Black mount bridge of New Zealand based on its pier's reliability analysis. Some parametric studies have also been included to obtain the results of practical interest.

• 한국전산구조공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전산구조공학회 2003년도 가을 학술발표회 논문집
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• pp.267-273
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• 2003

Steel fiber may be used to raise the effectiveness and safety of reinforced concrete structure and to relax its brittle-fracture behavior. However it is to be clearly stated that the uncertainty for the strength of fiber reinforced concrete(SFRC) is rather increased. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the safety of SFRC beam using reliability analysis incorporating realistic uncertainty. This study presents the statistical data and proposes the limit state model to analyze the reliability of SFRC bear In order to verify the efficiency of the proposed limit state model, its numerical application and sensitivity analysis were performed for a continuous SFRC beam. From the results of the numerical analysis, it is founded that the reliability of SFRC beam is significantly difficult from the conventional RC beams and proposed limit state model (or SFRC beam is more rational compared with that for conventional RC beams. Then it may be stated that the reliability analysis of SFRC beams must be carried out for the development of design criteria and the safety assessment.

• 대한조선학회논문집
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• 제28권2호
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• pp.207-227
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• 1991

본 논문에서는 구조물의 시스템 신뢰성해석(Structural System Reliability Analysis)의 설계에 대한 그 필요성과 중요성을 재차 강조하여 기술하였고, 이를 위해 현재까지 개발된 방법들을 효율성 측면에서 비교, 검토하였다. 또한 부유식 해양구조물과 같은 연속계의 구조물(Continuous Structures)의 설계에 사용되는 강도공식을 직접 이용할 수 있는 소위, 수정된 하중 증분법(Modified Incremental Load Method)에 대해 그 정식화 과정을 자세히 설명하였으며, 비교적 간단한 구조물에 적용하여 고 유용성을 보여주었다.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제1권4호
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• pp.357-369
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• 2014

In the existing bridge management systems, assessment of the structural behavior is based on the results of visual inspections in which corresponding condition states are assigned to individual elements. In this process, limited attention is given to the correlation between bridge elements from structural perspective. Also, the uncertainty of parameters which affect the structural capacity is ignored. A system reliability-based assessment model is potentially an appropriate replacement for the existing procedures. The aim of this research is to evaluate the system reliability of existing conventional Steel-Reinforced bridge decks over time. The developed method utilizes the reliability theory and evaluates the structural safety for such bridges based on their failure mechanisms. System reliability analysis has been applied to simply-supported concrete bridge superstructures designed according to the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC-S6) and the deterioration pattern is achieved based on the reliability estimates. Finally, the bridge condition index of an old existing bridge in Montreal has been estimated using the developed deterioration pattern. The results obtained from the developed reliability-based deterioration model and from the evaluation done by bridge engineers have been found to be in accordance.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제13권3호
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• pp.289-297
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• 2017

This paper presents seismic performance and reliability evaluation on steel-timber hybrid shear wall systems composed of steel moment resisting frames and infill light frame wood shear walls. Based on experimental observations, damage assessment was conducted to determine the appropriate damage-related performance objectives for the hybrid shear wall systems. Incremental time-history dynamic analyses were conducted to establish a database of seismic responses for the hybrid systems with various structural configurations. The associated reliability indices and failure probabilities were calculated by two reliability methods (i.e., fragility analysis and response surface method). Both methods yielded similar estimations of failure probabilities. This study indicated the greatly improved seismic performance of the steel-timber hybrid shear wall systems with stronger infill wood shear walls. From a probabilistic perspective, the presented results give some insights on quantifying the seismic performance of the hybrid system under different seismic hazard levels. The reliability-based approaches also serve as efficient tools to assess the performance-based seismic design methodology and calibration of relative code provisions for the proposed steel-timber hybrid shear wall systems.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제33권3호
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• pp.177-188
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• 2024

The fatigue-induced sequential failure of a structure having structural redundancy requires system-level analysis to account for stress redistribution. System reliability-based design optimization (SRBDO) for preventing fatigue-initiated structural failure is numerically costly owing to the inclusion of probabilistic constraints. This study incorporates the Branch-and-Bound method employing system reliability Bounds (termed the B³ method), a failure-path structural system reliability analysis approach, with a metaheuristic optimization algorithm, namely grey wolf optimization (GWO), to obtain the optimal design of structures under fatigue-induced system failure. To further improve the efficiency of this new optimization framework, an additional bounding rule is proposed in the context of SRBDO against fatigue using the B³ method. To demonstrate the proposed method, it is applied to complex problems, a multilayer Daniels system and a three-dimensional tripod jacket structure. The system failure probability of the optimal design is confirmed to be below the target threshold and verified using Monte Carlo simulation. At earlier stages of the optimization, a smaller number of limit-state function evaluation is required, which increases the efficiency. In addition, the proposed method can allocate limited materials throughout the structure optimally so that the optimally-designed structure has a relatively large number of failure paths with similar failure probability.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제82권3호
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• pp.271-282
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• 2022

The active learning surrogate model based on adaptive sampling strategy is increasingly popular in reliability analysis. However, most of the existing sampling strategies adopt the trial and error method to determine the size of the Monte Carlo (MC) candidate sample pool which satisfies the requirement of variation coefficient of failure probability. It will lead to a reduction in the calculation efficiency of reliability analysis. To avoid this defect, a new method for determining the optimal size of the MC candidate sample pool is proposed, and a new structural reliability analysis method combining polynomial chaos-based Kriging model (PC-Kriging) with adaptive sampling region is also proposed (PCK-ASR). Firstly, based on the lower limit of the confidence interval, a new method for estimating the optimal size of the MC candidate sample pool is proposed. Secondly, based on the upper limit of the confidence interval, an adaptive sampling region strategy similar to the radial centralized sampling method is developed. Then, the k-means++ clustering technique and the learning function LIF are used to complete the adaptive design of experiments (DoE). Finally, the effectiveness and accuracy of the PCK-ASR method are verified by three numerical examples and one practical engineering example.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제3권3호
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• pp.185-198
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• 2003

The concept of performance based seismic design has been gradually accepted by the earthquake engineering profession recently, in which the cost-effectiveness criterion is one of the most important principles and more attention is paid to the structural performance at the inelastic stage. Since there are many uncertainties in seismic design, reliability analysis is a major task in performance based seismic design. However, structural reliability analysis may be very costly and time consuming because the limit state function is usually a highly nonlinear implicit function with respect to the basic design variables, especially for the complex large-scale structures for dynamic and nonlinear analysis. Understanding statistical properties of the structural inelastic deformation, which is the aim of the present paper, is helpful to develop an efficient approximate approach of reliability analysis. The present paper studies the statistical properties of the maximum elastoplastic story drift of steel frames subjected to earthquake load. The randomness of earthquake load, dead load, live load, steel elastic modulus, yield strength and structural member dimensions are considered. Possible probability distributions for the maximum story are evaluated using K-S test. The results show that the choice of the probability distribution for the maximum elastoplastic story drift of steel frames is related to the mean value of the maximum elastoplastic story drift. When the mean drift is small (less than 0.3%), an extreme value type I distribution is the best choice. However, for large drifts (more than 0.35%), an extreme value type II distribution is best.