Abstract
The practicability of structural reliability analysis methods for a specific limit state depends to a great extent on the complexities of the formulation of the limit-state function. Often the limit-state function is not available in the explicit form. One way to solve the problem is to approximate a limit-state surface in a numerical form by regression. Once the response surface has been obtained, the reliability analysis is made with the response surface as limit-state surface in place of the complicated limit-state surface of the model. An application methodology for structural reliability analysis of the composite structures based on the response surface method in conjunction with nonlinear finite-element analysis is demonstrated in this paper. With the fitted response surface obtained, further developments for defining partial safety factors for composite design purpose are now possible.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation [grant number 50939002].