METODOLOGÍA EFICIENTE DE OPTIMIZACIÓN ESTRUCTURAL BASADA EN FIABILIDAD

Abstract

The Spanish Code of Building has included the methods of Structural Reliability into the Spanish regulations about Structural Safety. Although these methods are considerate as an informative annex, however they are an important tool in design of engineering structures. The latest advances in the methods of structural reliability, optimization and sensitivity analysis have led to the development of computational tools for RBDO (Reliability Based Design Optimization). In RBDO, deterministic optimization is enhanced by reliability performances and is formulated within a probabilistic framework. However, RBDO applications still exhibit severe limitations due mostly to low computational efficiency. A two level RBDO procedure has been implemented: optimization is carried out at the outer level by an algorithm based in SQP (Sequential Quadratic Programming), while structural reliability analysis is carried out at the inner level by first or second order reliability methods (FORM / SORM). Also, intensive computational processes as DSA (Design Sensitivity Analysis) and FEA (Finite Element Analysis) must be implemented. Several examples of structural systems are shown to verify the efficiency of the method. Keywords: Structural reliability, structural optimization, reliability-based optimization, reliability index approach, performance measure approach.