Reliability-Based Optimal Design: Problem Formulations, Algorithms and Application

Abstract

Algorithms for solving three classes of reliability-based optimal design problems are presented. The algorithms address design problems for structural components, series systems, and a portfolio of series systems, where the objective and/or constraint functions involve probability terms. The proposed approach employs reformulations of the problems, in which probability terms are replaced by better-behaving functions. The reformulated problems can be solved by existing semi-infinite optimization algorithms, An important advantage of the approach is that the required reliability and optimization calculations are completely decoupled, thus allowing flexibility in the choice of the optimization algorithm and the reliability method. A comprehensive numerical example demonstrates applications of the proposed algorithms.