Title: Inverse reliability measures and reliability-based design optimisation

Authors: Palaniappan Ramu, Xueyong Qu, Byeng Dong Youn, Raphael T. Haftka, Kyung K. Choi

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. ' Altair Engineering, Inc., 2445 McCabe Way, Suite 100, Irvine, CA 92626, USA. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 49931, USA. ' Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA

Abstract: Several inverse reliability measures (e.g. Probabilistic Performance Measure (PPM) and Probabilistic Sufficiency Factor (PSF)) that are essentially equivalent have been introduced in recent years as measures of safety. The different names for essentially the same measure reflect the fact that different researchers focused on different advantages of inverse measures. These advantages include improved computational efficiency of Reliability-Based Design Optimisation (RBDO), accuracy in Response Surface Approximations (RSAs) and easy estimates of resources needed for achieving target safety levels. This paper surveys these inverse measures and describes their advantages compared with the direct measures of safety such as probability of failure and reliability index. Methods to compute the inverse measures are also described. RBDO with inverse measure is demonstrated with a beam design example.

Keywords: inverse reliability measures; reliability based design optimisation; RBDO; Monte Carlo simulation; MCS; first-order reliability method; FORM; probabilistic sufficiency factor; PSF; probabilistic performance measures; PPM; safety measures; beam design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRS.2006.010697

International Journal of Reliability and Safety, 2006 Vol.1 No.1/2, pp.187 - 205

Published online: 19 Aug 2006 *

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