The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Applications of reliability-based global cost optimization to design of earthquake-resistant structures

Vitiello, Edmondo; Pister, Karl S.

UCB/EERC-74/10, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1974-08, 95 pages (600/V58/1974)

This report presents a methodology for incorporating into the decision-making process of design explicit consideration of possible future performance of the designed structure in the presence of uncertainty in both loading and structural parameters assumed in the design process. Design is viewed as an optimization problem, taking into account as a merit function terms related to building cost as well as possible future damage. Randomness of loads, load effects, structural resistances and structural parameters affecting response are considered. In this framework a method suited both to linear as well as nonlinear structural behavior is presented. Approximate expressions of the probabilities of the above random variables as functions of the central moment of their distributions are introduced. Together with a first-order expansion of the input-output response function characterizing the structural model, this procedure gives computational feasibility for actual design applications.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-74-10.pdf (5 MB)