ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT The traditional structural system reliability analysis method depends mainly on the branch and bound technology of the structure failure path, which is leading to difficulty in identification of the main failure mode and huge workload in calculation of the system failure probability. In view of this, combined with the β-bound method and joint failure probability branch bound method, a new method for fast and efficient solution to structural system reliability is put forward. Firstly, the safety margin functions of structural element and the corresponding failure probability are determined by application of structure analysis principle, the element with maximal value of failure probability is then removed and substituted by virtual force to form a new structure, and then reanalysis for the new structure is carried out. By following the steps above, until the mechanism is formed, the structure system reliability is finally determined to be the failure probability of the component in the last step. Case studies comparison with those existing methods show that the proposed method is simple, less calculating workload, high efficient calculation accuracy as well as failure path available, which is suitable for the system reliability calculation of large scale structure.
