Optimality-criteria-based probabilistic structural design

The possibility of extending absolute minimum weight designs for sandwich beam systems or fibre-reinforced beams and plates is considered when both the extreme loading applied to the system and the beam bending resistance properties are described in probabilistic rather than deterministic terms. It is shown that such an extension is possible provided certain plausible assumptions are made about the probabilistic modelling of the system. Examples considered include simple and continuous beams under loading of uncertain magnitude, direction or location. It is shown that the classical (deterministic) optimal solutions remain valid under reasonable assumptions. The extension of the probabilistic solutions to a wider class of examples is discussed.