Structural Fatigue Reliability Assessment Using Modified Monte Carlo Simulation

S.Y. Ang & A.K. Ariffin Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia. ______________________________________________________________________________ Abstract: Stochastic behaviors of the variables are the major contribution to fatigue failure of engineering structure and it has gained a lot of attention from researchers from various engineering disciplines. The main objective of structural reliability analysis is to ensure the safety and performance of an engineering system for specified functions and loading conditions in a given period of time. Therefore, the reliability assessment based analysis method need to adapt to any structural design to prevent any fatigue failure occurs in engineering structure. Modified Monte Carlo Simulation (MMCS) is proposed and applied to determine the probability of failure of a cracked specimen using Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) approach. The proposed method reduces the simulation effort in terms of computational time and number of simulations with similar accuracy compared to a Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS). It is found that the proposed method is able to solve the illustrative example faster than the Monte Carlo Method with the similar accuracy. Finally, this proposed method is capable to solve structural fatigue failure problem as well as to estimate the optimal inspection schedule.