Abstract

The probabilistic and possibilistic methods of reliability analysis of structures have been
developed independently. Though, the valuable comparisons between these two methods are
available in the literatures, no work seems to be available to find the relationship between the
two approaches. Moreover, as such there is no consensus about what method should be used
in many real life problems. The general understanding is that if the uncertainties are modelled
accurately, the probabilistic methods are better than its counterpart for efficient design. But,
the scarcity of data available may need to make strong assumptions which can be sensitive
enough in terms of safety of a system. Interestingly, most of those discussions and
conclusions are based on the fundamental assumption that the input system parameters
information are either all possibilistic or all probabilistic. But in a real structural system some
of the input parameters information are possibilistic while for other parameters information
are sufficient to model those as random. The focus of the present research study is on the
reliability analysis of structures characterized by mixed uncertain variables i.e. some of the
variables are probabilistic in nature and others are possibilistic in nature.

The state-of-the-art research in the field of reliability analysis of structure is reviewed

in detail and the conceptual differences between different existing formulations and solution
procedures are critically analyzed. The usual safety analysis algorithms normally assume all
the variables to be of single type i.e. either all probabilistic or all possibilistic. For safety
analysis of hybrid uncertain system by using existing reliability analysis algorithms, one
needs to express the associated limit state functions either in terms of probabilistic variables
or in terms of possibilistic variables. Though, various attempts to combine the information
were successful, the use by the profession for reliability analysis of mixed uncertain
parameters has not been popular. The concept of various transformation methods seems to be
potential to unify the mixed uncertain variables so that the existing probabilistic or
possibilistic reliability analysis format will be compatible. Relying on such emerging
transformation concepts, the safety analysis of hybrid uncertain system have been
demonstrated in the present study in probabilistic and also in possibilistic format. For
probabilistic reliability analysis of structural systems characterized by mixed uncertain
variables, each fuzzy variable is transformed to equivalent random variables obtained
following the fundamental concept of transformations. The standard FORM is readily applied
to obtain the probability of failure. In the possibilistic safety analysis approach, the random
variables are transformed to equivalent fuzzy variables using the entropy based
transformation concept. Subsequently, the possibilistic safety analysis is performed. For a
comparative study and consistency of the present transformation approach of reliability
analysis, conservative upper and lower bound of probabilities of failures are also computed
based on the evidence theory. The reliability computation under hybrid uncertainty is
elucidated through various numerical examples to illustrate the capability, consistency and
suitability of the present approach. The parametric variation of probability of failure results
computed with respect to various limit state functions (both implicit and explicit) are quite
consistent for a wide range of variations of those parameters. The reliability obtained by the
proposed transformation approaches are in conformity with the reliability bounds derived
based on the evidence theory. The entropy based transformation directly provides the
equivalent normally distributed parameters, whereas in scaling approach there is an
additional requirement that the probabilistic parameters need to be transformed to equivalent
normal variables. It is safe to apply entropy based transformation approach when no specific
judgment is available regarding the distribution pattern of the uncertain variables.

The safety evaluation of structural system characterized by mixed random and UBB
type possibilistic uncertain parameters are also demonstrated by applying efficient interval
analysis method in the framework of set theoretical description of UBB parameters in which
the fuzzy solution is envisaged as a set of interval solutions. Furthermore, an attempt has
been made to explore interval approach for reliability analysis of structural system
characterized by mixed random and fuzzy type possibilistic uncertain parameters in which
the fuzzy solution is envisaged as a set of interval solutions. The reliability of structures with
UBB parameters obtained by the interval analysis method contains those obtained based on
the most conservative uniform pdf assumption. This kind of results is in consistent with the
membership distribution of fuzzy reliability i.e. it ensures that the possibility distribution is
always greater than the probability distribution. The fuzzy reliability distribution and the
defuzzified reliability index for different load levels or uncertainty levels as obtained by the
proposed approach are also found to be consistent.