Structural reliability

Melcher, R. E. 1987. Structural Reliability Analysis and Prediction. Halsted Press/Wiley, New York. 

Having previously introduced the key methods to determine the important variables with respect to stress and strength distributions, the most acceptable way to predict mechanical component reliability is by applying SSI theory (Dhillon, 1980). SSI analysis is one of the oldest methods to assess structural reliability, and is the most commonly used method because of its simplicity, ease and economy (Murty and Naikan, 1997 Sundararajan and Witt, 1995). It is a practical engineering tool used for quantitatively predicting the reliability of mechanical components subjected to mechanical loading (Sadlon, 1993) and has been described as a simulative model of failure (Dasgupta and Pecht, 1991). 

Bolotin, V. V. 1994 Fatigue Life Prediction of Structures. In Spanos, P. D. and Wu, Y. (eds). Probabilistic Structural Mechanics Advances in Structural Reliability Methods. Berlin Springer-Verlag. 

Cable, C. W. and Virene, E. P. 1967 Structural Reliability with Nonually Distributed Static and Dynamic Loads and Strength. In Proceedings Annual Sympo.mim on Reliability, 329-336. 

Ditlevseii, O. 1997 Structural Reliability Codes for Probabilistic Design. Structural Safety, 19(3), 253-270. 

Avoiding structural failure can depend in part on the ability to predict performance of materials. When required designers have developed sophisticated computer methods for calculating stresses in complex structures using different materials. These computational methods have replaced the oversimplified models of materials behavior relied upon previously. The result is early comprehensive analysis of the effects of temperature, loading rate, environment, and material defects on structural reliability. This information is supported by stress-strain behavior data collected in actual materials evaluations. 

March, J.S., Parker, J., Sullivan, K., Stallings, P., and Conners, C.K. (1997) The Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) factor structure, reliability, and validity. / Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 36 554-565. 

Lange FF, Luther EP (1994) Colloidal Processing of Structurally Reliable Si3N4. In Hoffmann MJ, Petzow G (eds) Tailoring of Mechanical Properties of Si3N4 Ceramics. NATO ASI Series E. Vol 276, Kluwer Acad Publ Dordrecht, p 3... 

S. W. Freiman and C. M. Hudson, Methods for Assessing the Structural Reliability of Brittle Materials, ASTM STP 844, Philadelphia, PA, 1984. 

Tabic l.l gives those crystal data for the C,S polymorphs that have been obtained using single crystal methods. The literature contains additional unit cell data, based only on powder diffraction evidence. Some of these may be equivalent to ones in Table 1.1, since the unit ceil of a monoclinic or triclinic crystal can be defined in different ways, but some are certainly incorrect. Because only the stronger reflections are recorded, and for other reasons, it is not possible to determine the unit cells of these complex structures reliably by powder methods. The unit cells of the T, Mj and R forms are superficially somewhat different, but all three are geometrically related transformation matrices have been given (12,HI). 

The chemistry of aziridine is dominated by the strained three-membered ring structure. Reliable estimates give a value of 14 kcal.mole for the ring strain energy . The ring strain in aziridine leads to an increase in the polarity of the N-H bond reflected in the molecular dipole moment of 1.73 0.1 Z) . The microwave spectrum of the vapour has given the following structural data ... 

Discussions about NMR chemical shift relationships were highly timely in 1987 when the first edition of the book appeared Methods of calculating structures reliably had not then been developed, and the structures of carbocationic systems in particular were the subject of fierce continuing argument. Since then, however, the situation has changed considerably. More structures have been determined, others can be calculated reliably, and disputes about them are few. Consequently, only a few recent examples will be presented and discussed here, to illustrate how NMR chemical shift relationships... 

Imaging the landscapes of solid surfaces ex-situ and in-situ is nowadays an established method for gaining information about their local structure. Reliable data about the structure of adsorbate overlayers on top of the substrate can also be obtained by this technique (see other papers in this volume), if the atoms are strongly adsorbed. What to... 

We commence with Domaison, Wlodarczak and Rudolph s work [5] dealing with the use of rotational constants for the determination of reliable molecular structures. Reliable may be in the eye of the beholder —uncertainties in some reported intemuclear separations are comparable to the size of atomic nuclei, i.e. ca. 10 A. Neither in this chapter, nor anywhere else, will we attempt discussion of the energies to that resolution instead we will content ourselves here with uncertainties in energies on the order of a few kJ mol . ... 

Additional study is needed to establish the structural reliability of the copper-promoted conversion represented by 488 - 53. Another example of this reaction is the transformation 490 - 66 (m.p. 202°C)1,163 Alternative syntheses of 66 yielded products of similar melting points (202o-210oC).52,80 Solely on the basis of melting point (250°C), however, the minor product... 

This updated robust probability of failure incorporates knowledge about 0 from C and from the updated information from the data. It is robust because the modeling uncertainties are taken into explicit account [198]. The updated structural reliability of the stmcture is P(5 P, C) = 1 - F(F D, C), where S denotes a safe status of the structure. 

Conte, J. P. and Kumar, S. Statistical system identification of structures using ARMA models. In Proceedings of 7th ASCE Specialty Conference on Probabilistic Mechanics and Structural Reliability (Worcester, MA, 1996), pp. 142-145. 

A. G. Evans, Structural reliability A processing-dependent phenomenon, J. 

A review of the important aspects of current reliability theory has been published by the British Construction Industry Research and Information Association [61]. Only an outline of the basic ideas will be reviewed here. Methods of safety analysis grouped under the general heading of reliability theory have been categorised into three levels as follows level 1, includes methods in which appropriate levels of structural reliability are provided on a structural element (member) basis, by the specification of partial safety factors and characteristic values of basic variables level 2, includes methods which check probabilities of failure at selected points on a failure boundary defined by a given limit state equation this is distinct from level 3 which includes methods of exact probabilistic analysis for a whole structural system, using full probability distributions with probabilities of failure interpreted as relative frequencies. 

We are perhaps now in a position to attempt to consider the matter of structural safety in its total context. We have looked at both structural reliability theory in dealing with parameter uncertainty, and its inadequacies in dealing with system uncertainty. In the previous section human error was discussed in relation to structural safety. With these considerations in mind the author has presented a classification of failure types which will be listed again here [96]. The basic types proposed are as follows ... 

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