Abstract

This work presents a strategy for dealing with reliability-based design problems of a class of nonlinear finite element models under stochastic excitation. The solution of this class of problems is computationally very demanding due to the large number of finite element model analyses required during the design process. An effective model reduction technique combined with an appropriate optimization scheme is proposed to carry out the design process efficiently in a reduced space of generalized coordinates. In particular, a method based on component mode synthesis is implemented to define a reduced-order model for the structural system. The effectiveness of the proposed model reduction technique in the context of reliability-based design problems is demonstrated by one numerical example.