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A hybrid reliability model for structures with truncated probability distributions

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Abstract

In traditional reliability analysis, the uncertain parameters are generally treated by some ideal probability distributions with infinite tails, which, however, seems inconsistent with the practical situations as nearly all the uncertain parameters in engineering structures will get their values within a limited interval. To eliminate such an inconsistence and thereby improve the precision of the reliability analysis, the truncated probability distributions are then employed to quantify the uncertainty in this paper, and a corresponding reliability analysis method is developed. Two cases of positional relations are summarized for the uncertainty domain and the failure surface according to whether their intersection set is non-empty or empty. The probability and non-probability convex model methods are employed to deal with these two cases, respectively, and based on it, a hybrid reliability model is then constructed for truncated distribution problems. An efficient approach is also provided to distinguish these two positional relations and thereby determine which one of the probability and non-probability methods should be used when computing a real hybrid reliability. Five numerical examples are investigated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the present method.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, People’s Republic of China

    C. Jiang, X. Han & G. Y. Lu

Authors
  1. C. Jiang
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  2. X. Han
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  3. G. Y. Lu
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Correspondence to X. Han.

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Jiang, C., Han, X. & Lu, G.Y. A hybrid reliability model for structures with truncated probability distributions. Acta Mech 223, 2021–2038 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00707-012-0691-3

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