A mixed design approach for probabilistic structural durability

In this paper, a mixed approach for probabilistic structural durability design of mechanical systems is proposed. In this approach, a deterministic design optimization that considers structural crack initiation and crack propagation lives at critical points of the structural component as design constraints is performed first. After an optimal design is obtained, a reliability analysis is performed to ascertain if the deterministic optimal design is reliable. If the probability of the failure of the deterministic optimal design is found to be acceptable, a reliability-based design approach that employs a set of interactive design steps, such as trade-off analysis and what-if study, is used to obtain a near-optimal design that is reliable with an affordable computational cost. A 3-D tracked vehicle roadarm is employed to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.