A load space formulation for probabilistic finite element analysis of structural reliability

✍ Scribed by X.L. Guan; R.E. Melchers

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 179 KB
• Volume: 14
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0266-8920
• DOI: 10.1016/s0266-8920(98)00017-4

✦ Synopsis

A load space formulation for calculating the failure probability of complex structures for which the limit state functions are implicit is described in this paper. This formulation is used in conjunction with probabilistic ®nite element (PEE) analysis and employs a directional simulation to calculate the structural reliability. Apart from the advantage that a lower order space is used, the main advantage of the load space formulation proposed in this paper is that the number of inversions of the structural stiffness matrix and/or its gradients with respect to the material property random variables is reduced dramatically when compared with the usual Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) method. When used in a ®nite element reliability analysis, this procedure can save signi®cant amounts of CPU time. Numerical examples are presented to show the ef®ciency and accuracy of the proposed approach.