Tae Min Cho/Byung Chai Lee
The Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, vol. 24, no. 1, pp.279-283, 2010

Abstract : In this study, an effective method for reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) is proposed enhancing sequential optimization and reliability assessment (SORA) method by convex approximations. In SORA, reliability estimation and deterministic optimization are performed sequentially. The sensitivity and function value of probabilistic constraint at the most probable point (MPP) are obtained in the reliability analysis loop. In this study, the convex approximations for probabilistic constraint are constructed by utilizing the sensitivity and function value of the probabilistic constraint at the MPP. Hence, the proposed method requires much less function evaluations of probabilistic constraints in the deterministic optimization than the original SORA method. The efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method were verified through numerical examples.

Keyword : Convex approximations; Most probable point; Reliability-based design optimization; Sequential optimization and reliability assessment method