PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF RELIABILITY-BASED OPTIMIZATION

Reliability has long been recognized as a safety constraint in structu ral engineering. That is, an optimum design should balance both cost a nd safety. Nevertheless, applications of reliability analysis in recen t years have been primarily aimed at establishing the basis for code f actors. Similarly, most optimization studies have used accepted code s afety factors without introducing reliability as explicit design const raints. This paper reviews the methodology of component and system rel iability analysis and examples of their inclusion in optimization appl ications. The limitations in the explicit use of reliability in optimi zation are discussed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.