Structural Reliability Assessment with Ambiguity and Vagueness in Failure

Abstract

ABSTRACT Engineering projects and designs are commonly developed in a systems framework that includes different types of uncertainty. In general, uncertainty can be of either the ambiguity or vagueness type. The theory of probability and statistics has been extensively used in engineering to deal with the ambiguity type of uncertainty. The theory of fuzzy sets and systems has been used to model the vagueness type of uncertainty in many engineering applications. In this paper, the role of fuzzy sets in engineering systems is described using a selected example area that deals with vagueness in failure definition as used in solving structural reliability problems. The reliability of a structure is commonly based on an explicit definition of failure, making structural reliability dependent on this definition. The vagueness in the perception of damage and failure introduces another class of uncertainty, in addition to the commonly realized and modeled class of uncertainty, i.e., ambiguity. In this study, a methodology for reliability assessment of structures based on a fuzzy definition of failure is developed. The significance of the contribution is in providing the reliability of the structure over a damage spectrum.

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