System reliability-based design optimization with interval parameters by sequential moving asymptote method

Reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) offers a powerful tool to deal with the structural design with heterogeneous interval parameters concurrently. However, it is time-consuming in the practical engineering design. Therefore, a novel sequential moving asymptote method (SMAM) is proposed to improve the computational efficiency for convex model in this study, in which the nested double-loop optimization problem is decoupled to a sequence of deterministic suboptimization problems based on the method of moving asymptotes. In addition, the sensitivity of reliability index is derived, so the finite difference for the nested optimization loop can be avoided to tremendously improve the computational efficiency. Then, the accuracy of the SMAM is proved based on the error analysis. Furthermore, the Kreisselmeier-Steinhauser (KS) function is used to assemble the multiple constraints to deal with the parallel and series RBDO problems. One benchmark mathematical example, three numerical examples, and one complex civil engineering example, i.e., tower crane, are tested to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method by comparison with other existing methods, and the results indicate that SMAM offers a general and effective tool for non-probabilistic reliability analysis and optimization.

Automated summary

The study introduces a novel sequential moving asymptote method (SMAM) to improve the computational efficiency in reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) and avoid finite differences in nested optimization loops. The accuracy and efficiency of SMAM were demonstrated through various mathematical and engineering examples.