T. Y.

Torng
Southwest Research Institute
Sari Antonio, TX 78228-0510
R. 5. Yang
FORD Motor Company
Dearborn, MI 48124

bstract tro
Thispaper discusses an advanced reliability based This paper dscusses an advanced reliability based
optimization method for designing Q robust structural optimization method for designing a robust structural
system. This robust system must satisfy the system'. Thls robust system must satisfy the
perfonnancelcostlweight design criteria QS well QS the performance/cost/weight design criteria as well as the
reliability constraints of uncertain design parameters. To reliability constraints of uncertain design parameters. In
achieve this robust design, however, the computational conventional designs, all design parameters are treated as
&ort often becomes excessive when the system's deterministic. As a result, the final optimal design may
pegormanee requires the use of the finite element method. have either anunacceptably low or unnecessarily high level
This research uses an advanced mean value method to ofreliability. Both result in an inefficient use of resources'.
compute the reliability of this system and its sensitivities
with respect to those uncertain design parameters. An To calculate the reliability, it is necessary to model
approximateproblem isformulated before an optimization the uncertain parameters into random variables with
algorithm is used to obtain the optimaldesign. Thisprocess selected distribution types, means and standard deviations.
is iterated until robust design is achieved. Two problems However, for those uncertain design parameters with
are chosen to demonstrate the proposed method and the bounding constraints, a random variable with a fixed mean
results are compared with conventional optimization and standard deviation is not appropriate. Therefore, for
methods. these bounded constraints, the mean values m modeled as
these bounded constraint and the standard deviation values
are decided according to their uncertainty.
AMV advanced mean value method
AMV+ AMV iteration method With all the uncertain design parameters defined, an
Cdf cumulative density function advanced mean value (AMV)based method is proposed to
FORM first-order reliability method efficiently and accurately calculate the reliability and
g limit-state function identify the most probable point (MPP). As described in
g g function in X-space Ref. [3,4], this AMV method was used to solve a wide
g function in u-space variety of complex structural problems which require the
g use of computer-intensive programs such as the finite
MPP most probable point
n total number of random variables element program. The results indicated that the accuracy
probability density function of this AMV method is very competitive to other first-order
pdf reliability5methods and the efficiency of this AMVmethod
Pf probability of failure
is excellent.
SORM second-order reliability method
U standardized normal variable In solving an optimization problem with reliability
a probability sensitivity factor constraints, the sensitivity of the objective function and the
*
MPP in u-space reliability constraints with respect to their design
X original random variable parameters ~ I C required. Because an exact reliability
Y original design random variable constraint sensitivity requires several reliability (or AMV)
Z performance function analysis,total required calculationsmay become excessive.
P minimum distance To efficiently perform the optimization, an approximate
P mean value reliability constraint will be constructed based on the
mean value for var. X probabilistic sensitivity factors around the MPP and those
PX
bounded mean values.
PXL lower bound value for mean
Pxu upper bound value for mean By using the AMV method to calculate the reliability
a partial differentiation and construct an approximate function for each reliability
constraint, an approximate problem is formulated before
4 pdf of standard normal distribution
an optimization algorithm is used to obtain the optimal
Q cdf of standard normal distribution design. This optimization process is iterated until a robust
0 standard deviation design is achieved. In this study, the C O W
0, standard deviation for var. X optimization program, which employs the feasible

Copyright 0 American Institute of Aeronautics

and Astronautics, Inc., 1993 All rights reserved. 1198
direction method, is used. Two demonstration problems
are chosen to test the proposed method and the results are
compared with conventional optimization methods.
In real world problems, there exist various types of
uncertainties which can be broadly classified as being
either reducible or irreducible7. Irreducible uncertainties
are intrinsic to nature and beyond our ability to control,
e.g., material properties. Reducible uncertainties are
attributed to estimation error, modeling error, and human
error, and cannot be completely avoided. The effects of
reducible uncertainties, however, can possibly be
attenuated by additional testing, more accurate modeling,
and better quality control measures.
By using proper statistical tools, irreducible
uncertainties are modeled as random variables with
selecteddistribution types, means, andstandard deviations.
The same analysis strategy may be applied to reducible
uncertainties; however, the resulting means or standard
deviations may not be the m e means or standard deviations
because of either estimation or human error. Thus, for the
reducible uncertainties, an additional random variable may
be used to account for the modeling errors and random
means or standard deviations may be used to account for
those estimation error or human error.
The effect of irreducible uncertainties is reflected in
the calculated reliability, whereas the effect of reducible
uncertainties is reflected in a confidence bound on the
calculated reliability result'. In other words, with the
existence of reducible type of uncertainty such as uncertain
mean a d standard deviation, the reliability itself becomes
a random variable. By properly adjusting these uncertain
means and standard deviations, the reliability may be
adjusted to the specified reliability goal.
In this paper, each reliability constraint function may
include by both reducible and irreducible uncertainties. In
addition, for those uncertain design parameters with
bounding constraints, they are modeled as reducible type
of random variables. Therefore, each design random
variable with bounding constraints will have a normal
distributed random variable with a bounded mean and an
uncertain standard deviation. Because of these bounded
means and uncertain standard deviations, the reliability
solution becomes random, therefore, an approximate
reliability constraint function can be constructed as a
function of these uncertain means and standard deviations.
For optimization, this step will save considerablereliability
calculations.
0 n
With all the random variables or design random
variables defined, each reliability constraint function or
limit state function can be constructed throughthe response
(or performance) function, 2,
z=Z(X,Y)
1199
random variables and
the design random variables. This 2-function can be a
simple closed-form function or a complicatedmodel which
requires the use of computer intensive program to model.
To compute the reliability or probability of failure,
it is required to define a critical failure event. This failure
event can be defined as the 2-function value being less than
or greater than a critical response value, zo. In other words,
the reliability constraint function or limit state function, g,
becomes
) = 0, separates the variable space
into "failure" and "safe" regions. When the constraint
function becomes unequally, i.e., g < 0 or Z _< z,, the
reliability or the probability of failure, pf can be calculated
as
(3)
For simple closed-form g-functions, the reliability
computation is straightforward. To calculate an implicitly
defined g-function, the computation becomes more
difficult so that the selected probabilistic method must be
efficient, robust and reasonably accurate.
In general, the structural reliability analysis method
is developed to solve a limit-state function g (X). Given the
joint probability density function, fx(x), the probability of
failure can be formulated as
where &2is the failure region. This multiple integral is in
general very difficult to evaluate. Alternatively, a Monte
Carlo solution provides a convenient, but usually
time-consuming solution.
The b t step in the current reliability analysis
methods requires the tramformation of a generally
dependent, random vector into an independent,
standardized normal vector u. The Rosenblatt
transformation has been suggested when the joint
distribution is available7.*. If only the marginal
distributions and the covariances are known, a
transformation can be made to generate a joint normal
distribution that satisfies the given correlation structure.
By transforming g g(u), the most probable
point (MPP) in the u-spa is located. u*is the point
that defines the minimum distance,p, from the origin(u =0
point) to thelimit-state surface. Thispoint is most probable
because it has maximum joint probability density on the
limit-state surface, as shown in Fig. 1. The
found by using optimization, advancedmean value (ANN),
or other iteration schemes.
Joint Probability Density
I
Next, the g(u) or g@) function is approximated by
a polynomial that approximates the true function in the
vicinity of the MPP. Once the approximate function is
obtained, the associated failure probability can be
computed. If the g(u) formulation is used, several
analytical solutions are available for linear and quadratic
For example, the first-order reliability
method (FORM) estimate is:
P(g sO)=Q(-P), (5)
and the asymptotic second-order repbfity method
(SORM) estimate, derived by Breitung, is:
where a(-)is the cdfof a standard normal distribution and
j = 1, ...n - 1 are the main curvatures of the limit-state
surface at u*.
The accuracy of eachcomponent structuralreliability
calculation depends greatly on the most probable point
(MPP) value. An AMV-based method was developed to
search for the MPP with few extra g-function calculations
relative to the conventional mean-based second-moment
method (MVFOSM). The AMV-based iteration (AMV+)
algorithm was developed to improve the accuracy of the
AMV method. The AMV and the AMV+ methodologies,
discussed in greater details in Refs. [3,4],are summarized
as follows.
Assume that the Taylor's series expansion of
performance function, 2 exists at the mean values. The Z
function can be expressed as
1200
"
=a,+ c a,X,+H(X)
i=l
(7)
where the derivatives, ai,are evaluated at the mean values,
p, Z, is a random variable representing the sum of the
first-order terms, and H @ ) represents the higher-order
terms. In general, the coefficients ai can be computed by
numerical differentiation and the minimum required
number of Z-function calculations i s (n+l) for n random
variables. Since Z, i s explicit and linear, its cdf can be
computed efficiently.
For nonlinear Z-functions, the solution based on Z,
is only approximate. To improve the accuracy,
higher-order approximation functions can be developed.
However, for problems involving implicit Z functions and
large n, the higher-order approach might be difficult and
inefficient.
The AMV method reduces the truncation error by
replacing the higher-order terms H ( X ) by a simplified
functionH(Z,) dependent onz,. Ideally, the H(Z,) function
should be based on the exact most probable point (MPP)
locus of the Z function to minimize the truncation error.
The AMV procedure simplifies this approach by using the
MPP of z,.
Based on the AMV concept, two iteration algorithms
have been proposed to improve the cdf estimates.
. For a specified cdf level, first find the MPP of Z, =z,
at the specified cdf and recompute Z at this MPP.
UpdatethenewZ, functionaroundthe MPPofZ, =z,
and find the new MPP and recompute the Z value.
The solution converges when therecomputedZvalue
is close to z,
. For a specified Z value, use a quadratic search
algorithm developed by Wu4 to find the Z , = z, point
along the MPP locus of Z, and the associated cdf
value. Obtain the new Z , function around the MPP
of Z, =zo, locate the new MPP along the new MPP
locus of Z,, and update the cdf value. The solution
converges when the difference between the
recomputed cdf value and the previous cdf is within
a selected tolerance.
Illustration of AMV Iteration Procedure
Consider an example" where the Z function is the
first bending natural frequency of a cantilever beam. The
frequency is approximated as

where E is the modulus of elasticity, t is the thickness, p is
the material density, and L is the length.
By numerical differentiationat the mean value of the
random variables, the following first-order approximation,
fd, can be obtained using the results of five f,-function
evaluations.
f, =a,+a,E +a,t +a3p+a&
(9)
Based on this equation, a mean value cdf solution can
be obtained, as shown in Fig. 2. Note that the cdf solution
is plotted on a normal probability paper.
50% 7
Since f , is a nonlinear function, the linearized
approximationfunction, Eq. (S),is subjectedto error in the
regions away from the mean values. For each selected
probability, the AMV solution is obtained by calculating
f, at the MPP obtained from the linearized function. This
requires one function calculation for each selected
probability.
In Fig. 2, three points are shown at a selected
probability level (cdf = 0.003%). Point 1 is the M V
solution, point 2 is the AMV solution, and point 3 is the
AMV solution using the describediteration algorithm. The
required number of function calculations is summarized in
Table 1, in which n = 4.
At each calculated MPP, probability sensitivity
factors, a, for every random variable are the by-product
from the reliability analysis. These probabilisticsensitivity
factors are defined in the transformed standard normal
space (u-space) as,
1201
where (3 represents the first-order safety index value and
@-I represents the inverse standard normal cdf and F,(x)
represents the cdf for the original random variable, X.
These values show how sensitive the safety index to each
standard normal variate which is transformed from the
normal or non-normal random variable.
As discussed in the uncertainty modelling Section,
the design random variables are modeled with uncertain
means and uncertain (or fixed) standard deviations,
Because of these uncertain means and standard deviations,
the reliability value (or the safety index, p) itself becomes
a random function of these uncertain parameters. To
construct this random function, the sensitivitybetween the
reliability and these uncertain means and standard
deviations must be evaluated first. To compute these
sensitivities, the probabilistic sensitivity factors calculated
from the AMV analysis can be used to determine these
values. To illustrate the idea, assume a design random
variable, X, has mean and standard deviation value, px and
a,, respectively. The sensitivity factors between the safety
index (or reliability) and its mean or standard deviation can
be derived as the following:
ap
aCLx
-.-
ap -
-
apx dux
dux = a *3%
-
&X
ap -
- -.-
ap au, =
a * auX
-
ao, aux aa, 80,
Since M, is a function of px and a,, auX/apxand
au,/ao, can be derived easily.
on Calculations
Because each most probable point (MPP) search or
each safety index value requires several Z-function
calculations, it is reasonable to construct an approximate
reliability constraint function for performing the
optimization. With the au,/apx and au,/aa, values
evaluated as discussed in Eq. (11) and (12), it is possible
to construct an approximate reliability constraint function,
gA(Px, ax), as

* (o.,- OXkO)- @-I( 1- p * )
n n
=co+c cj* k,+c c, * OXk
j=1 1 k=l
where Po is the safety index result, pxflis the j-th initial
mean value, oXk,
is the k-th initial standard deviation value,
@-'(a) represents the inverse normal cumulative
distribution function (cdf), (1 - p " )is the selectedreliability
goal, and C,, Cj, and C, are constant.
This approximate reliability constraint function can
be used to estimate the safety index value when a set of
design parameters has been selected. However, because
this pvalue is obtained based on fist-order approximation
function, the reliability estimation is as good as the
first-order approximation.
A robust structural system must not only meet the
performance/weight/cost constraint but also the reliability
constraints due to uncertainty. In general, this robust
structural system is solved by minimizing or maximizing
the objective function (perfomance/weight/cost)
subject to some non-reliability constraints such as
bounding constraints and some reliability constraints
defined as
,U>20)2p,, i = l )...,L ,
where
is the vector of m random variables
(irreducible uncertainties)
Y 3.
is the vector of n design random variables
(reducible uncertainties.)
P (a) denotes the probability of the event
gi represents the i-th limit state function
p; is the required probability of survival for the
i-th constraint or failure mode.
L represents total no. of constraints
All design random variables here are assumed to be
random variables. Their mean values, p,, a~ subjected to
either upper, lower, or upper and lower bound constraints.
Because of the uncertainty, the standard deviations (or
tolerance), CF,,needs to be determined in order to account
forthose uncertainties. Because the meanvalue will change
during the design process, the standarddeviation valuemay
alsochange according tothemeanorremainconstant. Both
cases will be examined later.
The h a l optimal solution for this analysis is to
identify a set of design parameters, p,, with tolerance equal
to o,, such that the objective function is minimized and all
the reliability or non-reliability constraints are satisfied.
Before formally discussing the proposed reliability
based optimization method, some important discussions
discussed earlier are summarized as follows:
,. All uncertainties including uncertain design
parameters with bounding constraint need to be
modeled properly into random variables with
selected distribution types, means and standard
deviations.
* The most probable point (MPP) for each reliability
constraints must be identified by using the least
function calculations especially for those
complicated structural problems which require the
use of computer-intensive program. An advanced
mean value based method has shown its capability
to perform this task.
,. Because the optimization process requires several
iterations of search for an optimal design, it is
reasonable to construct approximate reliability
constraints by using the probabilistic sensitivity
factors information around the MPP.
By using these considerations, the proposed
reliability based optimization method is summarized as
follows:
(1.4)
1. Define the robust structural system criteria to
construct an optimization design problem with
reliability and non-reliability constraints. Define the
converge criteria for the final result, e.g., the
(15) objective function value converge.
2. Use the old design as the initial design point,
available. Otherwise, the mean value of these
uncertaindesignparametersmay be usedas theinitial
design point.
Construct an approximate reliability constraint for
each reliability constraint at the initial design point
by using the following steps:
(4)
a. Evaluate the safety index, Po, for the ith
by using advanced mean value
(AMV)method.
b. Construct an approximation constraint by using
the safety index result and the probabilistic
sensitivity factor with respect to their design
parameters (i.e., mean values and standard
deviations).
C. Construct the remaining approximate functions
for all reliability constraints.
4, Based on the objective function and all
approximation functions, CONMIN is used to find
the optimal design,
5. Repeat the steps 2-4 until the converge criteria are
met.
1202
 le 3.
A simple cantilever beam problem as shown in Fig. 3
is used to illustrate the proposed procedure. This design
optimization problem is defined lo minimize the weight of
the beam. The objective function is
F(L,b,h)=L b h 0 (16)
subject to stress and displacement reliability constraints
P( g, 2 0 ) 2 0.999 (17) This problem is solved by using the proposed
P( g, 2 0 ) 2 0.999 (18) procedure, however, for the most probable point (MPP),
several search methods which include the mean value
with method, the advanced mean value method, and the
first-order reliability method are used. The final objective
function values, as shown in Table 4, are very close for all
three methods, however, the total required number of
g-function calculations is much different. The mean value
based method produces reasonably good results by using
the least no. of g-function calculations, however, the
probability of failure solution may not be very accurate to
where R , is the material yield strength, A, is the deflection those extreme nonlinear constraints or larger uncertainties.
limit, Q is the static loading, E is the Young's Modulus, L To prove the point, the same problem is solved by
increasing the uncertainty (or tolerance) of the design
is the length of the beam, b is the width of the beam, and parameters. In other words, the coefficients of variation of
h is the height of the beam. the initial length, the width, and the height have been
increased from 5% to 10%. The new results are shown in
b Table5. AsshowninTable 5,themeanvaluebasedmethod
fails to identify the optimal solution.
Ta

Total of seven random variables are defined in this

optimization problem as shown in Table 2. Among these
random variables, only mean values of length, width, and
height of the beam are considered as design random
variables. The bounds of these uncertain means are defined
in Table 3. The standard deviations of these means are
assumed to be fixed in this case. The reliability goal is
.999.

In the traditional reliability based optimization

methods, the design parameters are usually assumed to be
deterministic bounded value. The randomness of these
design parameters has been ignored. To compare with this
type of analysis, the same problem is solved by changing
the standard deviations of the length, the width, and the
height to a negligible value (0.005% COV). The results of
this problem is shown in Table 6. By comparing the
objective (OBJ) function values with the previous ones,
OBJ value in this case is relatively smaller than the previous
cases. On the other hand, if we use this find design plus
the randomness considered earlier, this final design
probability of failure becomes 0.01 and 0.07 for COV
equals to 5%, and IO%, respectively. Both values exceed
I h(in) I Normal I 1.5 I 0.075 I the dowable probability of failure limit, 0.001.

1203
 Table
I FinalPfl I7.22E-4 I 7.31E-4 I
* Fail to reach the reliability goal
esults For 0.005% COV Case
I no.ofg,-fun.Calculations I 77 I 224
I b value I 0.8 I 0.8
The results show that the advanced mean value
method produces reasonable accurate and efficient solution
for all three cases mentioned earlier. Because the
g,-function is an extremely nonlinear function, the total
required function calculations for identifying the most
probable point for g,-function becomes larger. However,
compare with the FORM, the number of calculations
remains reasonable. To further validate the accuracy of
these results, a Monte Carlo simulation approach is used
to solve the same problem. Table 7-1 and 7-2 list these
Monte Carlo results and the corresponding AMV results.
Both results show the proposed method produces an
accurate and much more efficient (more than three orders
of magnitude) solution than the conventional Monte Carlo
method.
l.E-3 I
* FORM is used
I 462 I
I 0.8 I * FORM is used
Atenmembercantilever truss shown inFig. 4is used.
This problem is to find the cross-sectional area of each
memberofthetmss tominimizeitsweight, subject tostress,
displacement, and member size constraints. The optimal
result for this problem has been solved by several
optimization techniques as discussed in Ref. [12]. The
main goal of using this example here is to show the
importance of including reliability constraints when the
design parameters themselves become random.
In this example, there are ten stress constraints, eight
displacement constraints, and lower-bound constraints on
each design variable, which makes a total of twenty-eight
constraints. For the stress constraints, the limit is 25 ksi in
tension or compression; for the displacement constraints,
the limit is two inches along each degree of freedom; for
the lower-bound constraints for the cross-sectional area is
0.10 in.2 The rest of the important parameters include
1204
 material density equal to 0.10 Pb/h3and Young's modulus
equal to lo4hi. The design parameters for this example
are the cross-sectional area in each member.
To show the importance of including reliability
constraints, the stress constraints and displacement
constraints are used to evaluate reliability when the
~ 29.536 I 1.4768 I
cross-sectional area becomes random. As a matter of fact,
this assumption is actually necessary for these
cross-sectionalareas because uncertainty does exist during
the manufacturing process. Therefore, for the stress
constraints, the reliability is defined when the calculated
stress falls within the 25 ksi tension/compressionlimit. For
displacement limit, the reliability is defined when the
calculated displacement is less than the displacement limit
of 2 in.

in.

Before formally using the reliability concept, this

problem is solved by using CONMIN program with ten
iterations. The final objective function value after ten
iterations is 5644(1b) which is very competitive to the other To update the initial design for reliability goals of
solutions. The result of this analysis will be used as the 0.999,0.9999, and 0.99999, the proposed reliability-based
initial design point for using the proposed reliability optimization procedure is used. The objective function
analysis. To calculate the reliability of this design, the final values results are shown in Table 10. The results show that
cross-sectional areas results after ten iterations are to reach these reliability goal the resulting objective
considered as the mean values of Normally distributed function values are larger than the objective function value
random variables. These mean values stiU have the (5644) for the initial design. This increased cost represents
lower-bound constraints at 0.1 in2 As for the standard the cost for compensating a more robust (high-reliability)
deviations of these areas, they are considered to be 3%, 5% system. In addition, the objective function value also
or 7.5% of the mean values. In other words, the coefficient increases as the COV of the design variables increases.
of variations (COV) for h s e Normal random variables This proves that the design cost increases when the COV
equals to 3%, 5%, or 7.5%, respectively. These random (or allowable tolerance) of the design random variable
variables data (for COV = 0.05 case) are shown in Table 8. increases. However, when the allowable tolerance
increases the manufacturing cost decreases. Therefore, the
By using these defined design random variables, the balance between these two factors will be an interesting
reliability for all eighteen constraints can be evaluated. By topic in the future.
using this reliability information, the system failure can be
determined. To simplify the analysis, the system failure
occurs when one of the constraints failure occurs.
Therefore, the system failure probability equals to the
largest probability of failureamong these constraints. With
this assumption, the reliability for this initial design is
calculated for different COVs and shown in Table 9. The
results indicate the original design reliability equals to
94.7%, 83.4%, and 74.1% for 3%, 5%, and 7.5% COV,
respectively. In other words, if the reliability goal of this
design is .99 or .999, this initial design needs to be
redesigned. * Each OBJ result requires 5-10 more CONMIN iterations

1205
 An advanced reliability based optimization method
was presented. The method was developed primarily for
a complex structures that often require the use of a finite
element code. From both demonstration examples, the
proposed method not only reduces the number of finite
element analyses, but also gives very accurate results. In
example one, the proposed method was able to compute an
accurate and much more efficient (more than three orders
of magnitude) solution than the conventional Monte Carlo
method. In example two, the initial optimal design based
on the optimization program only was used to check the
reliability corresponding to different levels of
uncertainties. As a result, the initial design has only 94.7%,
83.4%, and 74.1 % reliability for 3%, 5%, and 7.5% COV,
respectively. The proposed advanced reliability based
optimization method is applied successfully to design a
robust system that satisfies the performance/cost/weight
design criteria as well as the reliability constraints.
This research was supported by FORD Motor
company. The support is gratefully acknowledged.
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