Stochastic Process-Based Structural Reliability Considering Correlation between Upcrossings
Publication: ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering
Volume 6, Issue 4
Abstract
Structural reliability is a widely used tool to estimate the safety level and remaining service life of civil structures and infrastructure systems. Using a stochastic process to model the resistance or structural response, the structural failure can be treated as the probability of the structural response exceeding the resistance (upcrossing). It has been widely assumed that the occurrence of upcrossings is independent, and thus a Poisson process can be used to describe the sequence of upcrossings. This may lead to significant error in the estimate of structural reliability. This paper presents a new method for structural reliability assessment, where the correlation between upcrossings is taken into account. A closed-form solution is derived for structural reliability, which is beneficial for its application in practical engineering. An illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to acknowledge the thoughtful suggestions of two anonymous reviewers, which substantially improved the present paper.
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© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Apr 10, 2020
Accepted: Jul 2, 2020
Published online: Sep 9, 2020
Published in print: Dec 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Feb 9, 2021
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