Fatigue reliability analysis using nondestructive inspection

In this paper, a comprehensive approach is developed to integrate computati onal reliability methods and nondestructive inspection (NDI) for fatigue re liability evaluation. Uncertainties existing in the performance and outcome of NDI are considered through numerical statistical measures, and the math ematical relationships among these measures are derived. A new method is pr oposed to estimate the probability of detection (POD) and confidence interv al using these relationships. Also, a new method of using the NDI results t o update the reliability estimation is presented, which accounts for POD, m easurement accuracy, false call probability, and the probability that a ver y large flaw may not be detected. The application of the proposed methods i s illustrated through an example fatigue problem and inspection techniques with different POD characteristics are compared.