Optimization of structural systems with respect to cost is a well-known application of mathematical optimization theory. However, optimization of structures with respect cost under probabilistic reliability constraints has been subject of only very few studies. The difficulty in using reliability targets or probabilistic constraints lies in the fact that modern reliability methods themselves are formualted as a problem of nonlinear optimization. In this paper a special formulation for series systems based o nthe so-called first-order reliability method (FORM) is presented. It is demonstrated that the problem can be solved by a one-level optimization problem. Two examples demonstrate the algorithm indicating that the proposed formulations are comparable in numerical effort with an approach based on semi-infinite programming but are definitely superior to a two-level formulation.
展开▼
