In this paper a brief overview of methods to assess the reliability of mechanical systems and structures is given. A selection of computational procedures, stochastic structural dynamics, stochastic fatigue crack growth, and reliability based optimization are discussed. It is shown that reliability based methods may form the basis for a rational decision making.

Dynamic structural responses via time history analysis are highly dependent to characteristics of selected records as the seismic excitation. Ground motion scaling is a well-known solution to reduce such a dependency and increase reliability to the dynamic results. The present work, formulate a twofold problem for optimal spectral matching and performing consequent sizing optimization based on ...

Economy and safety are two important components in structural design process and stablishing a balance between them indeed results in improved structural performance specially in large-scale structures including space lattice domes. Topology optimization of geometrically nonlinear single-layer lamella, network, and geodesic lattice domes is implemented using enhanced colliding-bodies optimizati...

In this paper, multi-objective optimization of railway wheel web profile using bidirectional evolutionary structural optimization (BESO) algorithm is investigated. Using a finite element software, static analysis of the wheel based on a standard load case, and its modal analysis for finding the fundamental natural frequency is performed. The von Mises stress and critical frequency as the proble...

This paper is concerned with application and evaluation of ant colony optimization (ACO) method to practical structural optimization problems. In particular, a size optimum design of pin-jointed truss structures is considered with ACO such that the members are chosen from ready sections for minimum weight design. The application of the algorithm is demonstrated using two design examples with pr...

To design a more economical structural form, it is necessary to optimize both the topology and shape of structures. To optimize topology, we propose a hybrid of Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Evolutionary Structural Optimization (ESO). This paper describes the considerations in applying the proposed method to topology structural optimization. Through numerical examples, the proposed method showed b...

The present study is an attempt to propose a mutation-based real-coded genetic algorithm (MBRCGA) for sizing and layout optimization of planar and spatial truss structures. The Gaussian mutation operator is used to create the reproduction operators. An adaptive tournament selection mechanism in combination with adaptive Gaussian mutation operators are proposed to achieve an effective search in ...

Despite comprehensive literature works on developing fitness-based optimization algorithms, their performance is yet challenged by constraint handling in various engineering tasks. The present study, concerns the widely-used external penalty technique for sizing design of pin-jointed structures. Observer-teacher-learner-based optimization is employed here since previously addressed by a number ...

In this paper we propose an approach to solve multi-objective structural design problem using basic t-norm based fuzzy optimization programming technique. Here a planer truss structural model in fuzzy environment has been developed. In this structural model formulation, the objective functions are the weight of the truss and the vertical deflection of loaded joint; the design variables are the ...

In this paper, structural topology optimization is extended to systems design. Locations and patterns of connections in a structural system that consists of multiple components strongly affect its performance. Topology of connections is defined, and a new classification for structural optimization is introduced that includes the topology optimization problem for connections. A mathematical prog...