Metamodel Methodology For Reliability Analysis And Its Application In Engineering

Structural reliability analysis for implicit performance function is the research hotspot at present. The existing methods include the traditional response surface method (RSM),and the recently developed artificial neural network, Kriging and support vector machine et al. However, the basic thought of these method is to construct a approximate model of performance function and then perform reliability analysis on it. Based on the commonality of the above-mentioned method and the thinking of metamodeling extensively used in the fields of computer experiment and simulation optimization, this paper proposed a new metamodel-based framework for the reliability analysis for implicit performance function, and conducted intensive research on some involved issues. The main content of the paper are as follows:(1) The metamodel and metamodeling concept was firstly introduced into the structural reliability analysis to unify the above-mentioned method. And a new trilogy-wise method containing the numerical simulation of engineering structures, the metemodeling of simuation model and the reliability analysis performed on metamodel was suggested.(2) The application of two specific metamodel:RSM and kriging in reliability were studied deeply and their recent devepment was concluded. Based on this, an improved adaptive response surface method based on uniform design and double weighted regression and a new design point searching method based on kriging were presented. Some case studyies were conducted to check the validity and applicability of these two methods.(3) The experimental design methods in applied statistics were investigated. Comparison of some experimental designs for metamodel fitting in reliability analysis was made. Then, suggestions for selection of experimental designs in the presented method were provided.(4) The presented method was applied to the slope reliability assessment. A new slope reliability analysis method was formed by combining the presented method with the finite element strength reduction method (FESRM). Then, the newly formed Metamodel-FESRM method was successfully used to evaluate the reliability of an open-pit slope in GuangDong province, China.(5) Except for theoretical research and engineering analysis, a set of procedures for the proposed RSM, Kriging method and some experimental designs were developed to facilitate the application of the metamodel-based method. The validity of these procedures were checked by the case and engineering analysis in this paper, so they can be used as analysis tools for the researchers and engineers.