MS66 Global and System Reliability of Complex Structures and Systems

Prof. Jianbing Chen: chenjb@tongji.edu.cn

Session Chairs:
Jianbing Chen, Professor, Tongji University, E-mail: chenjb@tongji.edu.cn
Ton Vrouwenvelder, Professor, TNO, E-mail: ton.vrouwenvelder@tno.nl
John Dalsgaard Sørensen, Professor, Aalborg University, E-mail: jdas@build.aau.dk
Jie Li, Professor, Tongji University, E-mail: lijie@tongji.edu.cn

Abstract of the special session:
Structural reliability is a quantitative measure of structural safety and serviceability, which in turn is defined as the complementary probability of a failure event. Practical engineering structures consist of different components and sub-systems with mechanical or functional connections and interactions. In particular, the failure or defunctionalization of a structure may originates from the onset of microcracks, followed by damage evolution, cracks propagation, and finally de-structure or collapse. In this complete nonlinear process exhibited are complex multi-scale nonlinear mechanical behaviors, which are random in nature due to the coupling of uncertainty involved in external loadings and physical-mechanical properties of structures. The mystery of structural failure has still not been resolved as yet, and the global reliability, rather than the component reliability, of a structure or engineering system, is still a challenging problem for rational engineering decision-making. Topics of interests include but are not limited to the following aspects:

• Uncertainty quantification of loadings and structural parameters as random variables, stochastic processes and random fields on the full probability level
• Random modeling of deterioration of structural properties/performances
• Uncertainty propagation in nonlinear systems
• Multi-scale damage/failure criterion
• Stochastic damage/failure mechanics
• Local and global sensitivity analysis
• Global reliability evaluation
• Case studies of global reliability assessment of complex structures and systems