Reliability Analysis of Structural Systems by Stable Configurations

A practical approach for the reliability analysis of structural systems is presented. Practical approximations and simplifications to the theoretical stable‐configuration approach are derived from the cut‐set formulation based on the dominant physical configurations of a given structure. By considering the reliabilities of the initial configuration and those of the dominant configurations (corresponding to one failed component), an estimate of the failure probability of the system is obtained. This estimate, in conjunction with the reliabilities of the remaining components of the structure, is used to select other dominant configurations (corresponding to more failed components). The final system reliability is estimated through the intersection of events corresponding to all the selected dominant configurations. A practical algorithm is suggested, and two numerical examples provided. The approach is shown to be particularly effective for the analysis of the reliability of brittle structural systems, which include the collapse mode of failure.