Reliability assessment in structural dynamics

This paper presents a brief survey of methods for efficient reliability analysis of dynamical systems. The importance of the consideration of uncertainties both with respect to loading characteristics and structural parameters and the therefore arising question about the reliability of a structure are thoroughly discussed. The adopted classification of the investigated approaches is application-based, i.e. the methods are divided according to their applicability to linear or non-linear systems, to deterministic or stochastic structural systems, to deterministic or stochastic loads and also to low- or high-dimensional problems. The approaches which will be discussed in the following are clearly only a small selection out of a vast amount of methods, where the selection is mainly based on recent approaches which were proposed in the last decade and which are applicable to large Finite Element models. Hence, this small selection is intended to give a short and concise overview of the state of the art which might also serve as an introduction into this topic.

► An overview of methods for reliability analysis of dynamical systems is given.
► The discussion focuses on simulation methods for large engineering structures.
► Both linear and nonlinear systems are considered.