System Reliability Analysis Method Based on T-S FTA and HE-BN

For high-reliability systems in military,aerospace,and railway fields,the challenges of reliability analysis lie in dealing with unclear failure mechanisms,complex fault relationships,lack of fault data,and uncertainty of fault states.To overcome these problems,this paper proposes a reliability analysismethod based on T-S fault tree analysis(T-S FTA)and Hyper-ellipsoidal Bayesian network(HE-BN).The method describes the connection between the various systemfault events by T-S fuzzy gates and translates them into a Bayesian network(BN)model.Combining the advantages of T-S fault tree modeling with the advantages of Bayesian network computation,a reliability modeling method is proposed that can fully reflect the fault characteristics of complex systems.Experts describe the degree of failure of the event in the form of interval numbers.The knowledge and experience of experts are fused with the D-S evidence theory to obtain the initial failure probability interval of the BN root node.Then,the Hyper-ellipsoidal model(HM)constrains the initial failure probability interval and constructs a HE-BN for the system.A reliability analysismethod is proposed to solve the problem of insufficient failure data and uncertainty in the degree of failure.The failure probability of the system is further calculated and the key components that affect the system’s reliability are identified.The proposedmethod accounts for the uncertainty and incompleteness of the failure data in complex multi-state systems and establishes an easily computable reliability model that fully reflects the characteristics of complex faults and accurately identifies system weaknesses.The feasibility and accuracy of the method are further verified by conducting case studies.

Hybrid response surface method for system reliability analysis of pilereinforced slopes

To consider the complex soil-structure interaction in a pile-slope system,it is necessary to analyze the performance of pile-slope systems based on a three-dimensional(3D)numerical model.Reliability analysis of a pile-slope system based on 3D numerical modeling is very challenging because it is computationally expensive and the performance function of the pile failure mode is only defined in the safe domain of soil stability.In this paper,an efficient hybrid response surface method is suggested to study the system reliability of pile-reinforced slopes,where the support vector machine and the Kriging model are used to approximate performance functions of soil failure and pile failure,respectively.The versatility of the suggested method is illustrated in detail with an example.For the example examined in this paper,it is found that the pile failure can significantly contribute to system failure,and the reinforcement ratio can effectively reduce the probability of pile failure.There exists a critical reinforcement ratio beyond which the system failure probability is not sensitive to the reinforcement ratio.The pile spacing affects both the probabilities of soil failure and pile failure of the pile-reinforced slope.There exists an optimal location and an optimal length for the stabilizing piles.

Strategy for Synthesis of Flexible Heat Exchanger Networks Embedded with System Reliability Analysis

System reliability can produce a strong influence on the performance of the heat exchanger network(HEN).In this paper,an optimization method with system reliability analysis for flexible HEN by genetic/simulated annealing algorithms(GA/SA) is presented.Initial flexible arrangements of HEN is received by pseudo-temperature enthalpy diagram.For determining system reliability of HEN,the connections of heat exchangers(HEXs) and independent subsystems in the HEN are analyzed by the connection sequence matrix(CSM),and the system reliability is measured by the independent subsystem including maximum number of HEXs in the HEN.As for the HEN that did not meet system reliability,HEN decoupling is applied and the independent subsystems in the HEN are changed by removing decoupling HEX,and thus the system reliability is elevated.After that,heat duty redistribution based on the relevant elements of the heat load loops and HEX areas are optimized in GA/SA.Then,the favorable network configuration,which matches both the most economical cost and system reliability criterion,is located.Moreover,particular features belonging to suitable decoupling HEX are extracted from calculations.Corresponding numerical example is presented to verify that the proposed strategy is effective to formulate optimal flexible HEN with system reliability measurement.

System Reliability Analysis of an Offshore Jacket Platform

This study investigates strategies for solving the system reliability of large three-dimensional jacket structures.These structural systems normally fail as a result of a series of different components failures.The failure characteristics are investigated under various environmental conditions and direction combinations.Theβ-unzipping technique is adopted to determine critical failure components,and the entire system is simplified as a series-parallel system to approximately evaluate the structural system reliability.However,this approach needs excessive computational effort for searching failure components and failure paths.Based on a trained artificial neural network(ANN),which can be used to approximate the implicit limit-state function of a complicated structure,a new alternative procedure is proposed to improve the efficiency of the system reliability analysis method.The failure probability is calculated through Monte Carlo simulation(MCS)with Latin hypercube sampling(LHS).The features and applicability of the above procedure are discussed and compared using an example jacket platform located in Chengdao Oilfield,Bohai Sea,China.This study provides a reference for the evaluation of the system reliability of jacket structures.

Barton-Bandis criterion-based system reliability analysis of rock slopes

Several potential failure modes generally exist in rock slopes because of the existence of massive structural planes in rock masses. A system reliability analyses method for rock slopes with multiple failure modes based on nonlinear Barton-Bandis failure criterion is proposed. The factors of safety associated with the sliding and overturning failure modes are derived, respectively. The validity of this method is verified through a planar rock slope with an inclined slope top and tension crack. Several sensitivity analyses are adopted to study the influences of structural-plane parameters, geometric parameters, anchoring parameters and fracture morphology on the rock slopes system reliability.

Importance measure of system reliability upgrade for multi-state consecutive k-out-of-n systems

Importance measures in reliability systems are used to identify weak components in contributing to a proper function of the system. Traditional importance measures mainly concerned the changing value of the system reliability caused by the change of the reliability of the component, and seldom considered the joint effect of the probability distribution, improvement rate of the object component. This paper studies the rate of the system reliability upgrading with an improvement of the component reliability for the multi-state consecutive k-out-of-n system. To verify the multi-state consecutive k-out-of-n system reliability upgrading by improving one component based on its improvement rate, an increasing potential importance （IPI） and its physical meaning are described at first. Secondly, the relationship between the IPI and Birnbaum importance measures are discussed. And the IPI for some different improvement actions of the component is further discussed. Thirdly, the characteristics of the IPI are analyzed. Finally, an application to an oil pipeline system is given.

Application of matrix-based system reliability method in complex slopes

Complex slopes are characterized by large numbers of failure modes,cut sets or link sets,or by statistical dependence between the failure modes.For such slopes,a systematic quantitative method,or matrix-based system reliability method,was described and improved for their reliability analysis.A construction formula of event vector c E was suggested to solve the difficulty of identifying any component E in sample space,and event vector c of system events can be calculated based on it,then the bounds of system failure probability can be obtained with the given probability information.The improved method was illustrated for four copper mine slopes with multiple failure modes,and the bounds of system failure probabilities were calculated by self-compiling program on the platform of the software MATLAB.Comparison in results from matrix-based system reliability method and two generic system methods suggests that identical accuracy could be obtained by all methods if there are only a few failure modes in slope system.Otherwise,the bounds by the Ditlevsen method or Cornell method are expanded obviously with the increase of failure modes and their precision can hardly satisfy the requirement of practical engineering while the results from the proposed method are still accurate enough.

System reliability analysis of seismic pseudo-static stability of rock wedge based on nonlinear Barton–Bandis criterion

Based on the nonlinear Barton–Bandis(B–B)failure criterion,this study considers the system reliability of rock wedge stability under the pseudo-static seismic load.The failure probability(Pf)of the system is calculated based on the Monte−Carlo method when considering parameter correlation and variability.Parameter analysis and sensitivity analysis are carried out to explore the influence of parameters on reliability.The relationships among the failure probability,safety factor(Fs),and variation coefficient are explored,and then stability probability curves of the rock wedge under the pseudo-static seismic load are drawn.The results show that the parameter correlation of the B–B failure criterion has a significant influence on the failure probability,but correlation increases system reliability or decreases system reliability affected by other parameters.Under the pseudo-static seismic action,sliding on both planes is the main failure mode of wedge system.In addition,the parameters with relatively high sensitivity are two angles related to the joint dip.When the coefficient of variation is consistent,the probability of system failure is a function of the safety factor.

Bayesian method for system reliability assessment of overlapping pass/fail data

For high reliability and long life systems, system pass/fail data are often rare. Integrating lower-level data, such as data drawn from the subsystem or component pass/fail testing,the Bayesian analysis can improve the precision of the system reliability assessment. If the multi-level pass/fail data are overlapping,one challenging problem for the Bayesian analysis is to develop a likelihood function. Since the computation burden of the existing methods makes them infeasible for multi-component systems, this paper proposes an improved Bayesian approach for the system reliability assessment in light of overlapping data. This approach includes three steps： fristly searching for feasible paths based on the binary decision diagram, then screening feasible points based on space partition and constraint decomposition, and finally simplifying the likelihood function. An example of a satellite rolling control system demonstrates the feasibility and the efficiency of the proposed approach.

System Reliability Analysis of Offshore Strctures and Component Safety Rank Assessment

Offshore structures will encounter serious environmental load, so it is important to study the structural system reliability and to evaluate the structural component safety rank. In this paper, the bracnch-and-bound method is adopted to search the main failure path, and the Ditlevsen bound method is used to calculate the system failure probability. The structure is then assessed by the fuzzy comprehensive assessment method, which evaluates the structural component safety rank. The ultimate equation of the tubular cross- section is analyzed on the basis of ultimate stregnth analysis. The influence of effect coefficients on the structural system failure probability is investigated, and basic results are obtained. A general program for spatial frame structures by means of the above method is developed, and verified by the numerical examples.

DISTRIBUTED MONITORING SYSTEM RELIABILITY ESTIMATION WITH CONSIDERATION OF STATISTICAL UNCERTAINTY

Taking into account the whole system structure and the component reliability estimation uncertainty, a system reliability estimation method based on probability and statistical theory for distributed monitoring systems is presented. The variance and confidence intervals of the system reliability estimation are obtained by expressing system reliability as a linear sum of products of higher order moments of component reliability estimates when the number of component or system survivals obeys binomial distribution. The eigenfunction of binomial distribution is used to determine the moments of component reliability estimates, and a symbolic matrix which can facilitate the search of explicit system reliability estimates is proposed. Furthermore, a case of application is used to illustrate the procedure, and with the help of this example, various issues such as the applicability of this estimation model, and measures to improve system reliability of monitoring systems are discussed.

System Reliability Analysis for Truss Structures Based on Automatic Updated Model

Multiple failure modes tend to be identified in the reliability analysis of a redundant truss structure.This identification process involves updating the model for identifying the next potential failure members.Herein we intend to update the finite element model automatically in the identification process of failure modes and further perform the system reliability analysis efficiently.This study presents a framework that is implemented through the joint simulation of MATLAB and APDL and consists of three parts:reliability index of a single member,identification of dominant failure modes,and system-level reliability analysis for system reliability analysis of truss structures.Firstly,RSM(response surface method)combines with a constrained optimization model to calculate the reliability indices ofmembers.Then theβ-unzipping method is adopted to identify the dominant failuremodes,and the system function in MATLAB,as well as the EKILL command in APDL,is used to facilitate the automatic update of the finite element model and realize load-redistribution.Besides,the differential equivalence recursion algorithmis performed to approximate the reliability indices of failuremodes efficiently and accurately.Eventually,the PNET(probabilistic network evaluation technique)is used to calculate the joint failure probability as well as the system reliability index.Two illustrative examples demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed system reliability analysis framework through comparison with corresponding references.

A Method for Analyzing System Reliability of Existing Jacket Platforms

Owing to the ageing of the existing structures worldwide and the lack of codes for the continued safely management of structures during their lifetime, it is very necessary to develop a tool to evaluate their system reliability over a time interval. In this paper, a method is proposed to analyze system reliability of existing jacket platforms. The influences of dint, crack and corrosion are considered. The mechanics characteristics of the existing jacket platforms to extreme loads are analyzed by use of the nonlinear mechanical analysis. The nonlinear interaction of pile-soil-structure is taken into consideration in the analysis. By use of FEM method and Monte Carlo simulation, the system reliability of the existing jacket platforul can be obtained. The method has been illustrated through application to BZ28-1 three jacket platforms which have operated for sixteen years. Advantages of the proposed method for analyzing the system reliability of the existing jacket platform is also highlighted.

System reliability evaluation method considering physical dependency with FMT and BDD analytical algorithm

Recently, the physics-of-failure(PoF) method has been more and more popular in engineering to understand the failure mechanisms(FMs) of products.However, due to the lack of system modeling methods and problem-solving algorithms,the information of FMs cannot be used to evaluate system reliability.This paper presents a system reliability evaluation method with failure mechanism tree(FMT) considering physical dependency(PDEP) such as competition, trigger, acceleration, inhibition, damage accumulation, and parameter combination.And the binary decision diagram(BDD) analytical algorithm is developed to establish a system reliability model.The operation rules of ite operators for generating BDD are discussed.The flow chart of system reliability evaluation method based on FMT and BDD is proposed.The proposed method is applied in the case of an electronic controller drive unit.Results show that the method is effective to evaluate system reliability from the perspective of FM.

Assessment of Multiple Working Condition System Reliability with Agent-Based Simulation Method

The mission reliability assessment plays a great role in logistics planning and supporting resource optimization of complex system.But the current problem,which is difficult to solve,is how to model and analyze the characters of system reliability under the complex mission profile.In order to solve the problem,an agentbased simulation method was used to assess reliability for complex systems with various random working conditions.A multi-working condition simulation agent(MA)was designed and used to simulate the random transferring process of working conditions of system,and it cooperated with system simulation agents(SAs)and unit simulation agents(UAs)to realize system mission reliability(MR)simulation.Through simulation experiments,effect of multiple working conditions mission on the reliability of system was analyzed by comparing with the basic reliability condition.Feasibility and efficiency of the method were proved through simulation experiments of the case system.The research result provides a viable and useful method and a solution for MR analysis and assessment of complex systems in multi-working conditions,which can help to evaluate the reliability of operating system orienting to the practical mission and environment,and it is meaningful for the reliability analysis and the design of complex systems.

System reliability evaluation of long railway subgrade slopes considering discrete instability

This paper develops a dual-indicator discrete method(DDM)for evaluating the system reliability performance of long soil subgrade slopes.First,they are segmented into many slope sections using the random finite element method,to ensure each section statistically contains one potential local instability.Then,the k-out-of-n system model is used to describe the relationship between the total number of sections n,the acceptable number of failure sections m,the reliability of sections R_(sec),and the system reliability R_(sys).Finally,m and R_(sys)are jointly used to assess the system reliability performance.For cases lacking spatial data of soil properties,a simplified DDM is provided in which long subgrade slopes are segmented by the empirical value of section length and R_(sec)is substituted by that of crosssections taken from them.The results show that(1)DDM can provide the probability that the actual number of local instabilities does not exceed a desired threshold.(2)R_(sys)decreases with increasing n or decreasing R_(sec);that is,it is likely to encounter more local instabilities for longer or weaker subgrade slopes.n is negatively related to the horizontal scale of fluctuation of soil properties and positively related to the total length of subgrade slopes L.(3)When L is sufficiently large,there is a considerable opportunity to meet local instabilities even if R_(sec)is large enough.

Building Bayesian Network(BN)-Based System Reliability Model by Dual Genetic Algorithm(DGA)

A system reliability model based on Bayesian network(BN)is built via an evolutionary strategy called dual genetic algorithm(DGA).BN is a probabilistic approach to analyze relationships between stochastic events.In contrast with traditional methods where BN model is built by professionals,DGA is proposed for the automatic analysis of historical data and construction of BN for the estimation of system reliability.The whole solution space of BN structures is searched by DGA and a more accurate BN model is obtained.Efficacy of the proposed method is shown by some literature examples.

Impact of climate simulation resolutions on future energy system reliability assessment:A Texas case study

The reliability of energy systems is strongly influenced by the prevailing climate conditions.With the increasing prevalence of renewable energy sources,the interdependence between energy and climate systems has become even stronger.This study examines the impact of different spatial resolutions in climate modeling on energy grid reliability assessment,with the Texas interconnection between 2033 and 2043 serving as a pilot case study.Our preliminary findings indicate that while low-resolution climate simulations can provide a rough estimate of system reliability,high-resolution simulations can provide more informative assessment of low-adequacy extreme events.Furthermore,both high-and low-resolution assessments suggest the need to prepare for severe blackout events in winter due to extremely low temperatures.

System reliability-based robust design of deep foundation pit considering multiple failure modes

Recently,reliability-based design is a universal method to quantify negative influence of uncertainty in geotechnical engineering.However,for deep foundation pit,evaluating the system safety of retaining structures and finding cost-effective design points are main challenges.To address this,this study proposes a novel system reliability-based robust design method for retaining system of deep foundation pit and illustrated this method via a simplified case history in Suzhou,China.The proposed method included two parts:system reliability model and robust design method.Back Propagation Neural Network(BPNN)is used to fit limit state functions and conduct efficient reliability analysis.The common source random variable(CSRV)model are used to evaluate correlation between failure modes and determine the system reliability.Furthermore,based on the system reliability model,a robust design method is developed.This method aims to find cost-effective design points.To solve this problem,the third generation non-dominated genetic algorithm(NSGA-III)is adopted.The efficiency and accuracy of whole computations are improved by involving BPNN models and NSGA-III algorithm.The proposed method has a good performance in locating the balanced design point between safety and construction cost.Moreover,the proposed method can provide design points with reasonable stiffness distribution.

System Reliability Analysis of Reservoir Landslides:Insights from Long-Term Reservoir Operation

The reservoir operation awakens numerous landslides with multiple sliding surfaces known as reservoir landslides,and the systematic stability analysis for such landslides is becoming increasingly urgent.Taking the Majiagou landslide as an example,this paper analyses the comprehensive performance of the landslide from a probabilistic point of view.Under a reservoir operation cycle,a series of numerical analyses are carried out to simulate the migration of the seepage field,then the dynamic stability of the landslide is quantified accordingly.Subsequently,the wetting-drying cycles test is used to model the weakening of strength parameters in hydro-fluctuation belt under the long-term reservoir operation.Considering the weakening effect of long-term reservoir operation on the hydrofluctuation belt,the system reliability is evaluated using the Ditlevsen's bounds.The results suggest that the reservoir operation can affect the stability of the landslide by changing the seepage field.The system failure probability gradually rises as the number of wetting-drying cycles increases.Compared with conventional probabilistic analysis that calculates the failure probability of each sliding surface mechanically,analyzing the landslide in terms of system reliability can effectively narrow the failure probability range,which provides an insightful idea for evaluating the systematic stability of analogous reservoir landslides.