Reliability-based optimal design of series structural systems

A robust approach for approximately solving reliability-based optimal design problems, for series structural systems, is developed. The approach reformulates the problems by replacing reliability terms with deterministic functions. The reformulated problems can be solved by existing semiinfinite optimization algorithms, producing solutions that are identical to those of the original problems, when the limit-state functions are affine, or when first-order reliability approximations are used. An important advantage of the approach is that the required reliability and optimization calculations are completely decoupled, allowing flexibility in the choice of the optimization algorithm and the reliability method. Three sets of examples demonstrate applications of the approach.