Safety factor requirements for the offshore industry

The maintenance of structural integrity is a significant consideration in the safety management of offshore installations. Installations operating in the North Sea are primarily of welded construction and are subjected to severe environmental conditions, which induce significant fatigue loads. Thus, offshore installations are designed to resist structural failure from fatigue and extreme loading as well as other failure mechanisms, e.g., corrosion. Additionally, design to resist failure from accidental loading, such as fire and explosion and boat impact, is recognised as being particularly important. The need to maintain safety standards is of particular relevance on the United Kingdom continental shelf (UKCS) where there is an increasing ageing population of installations which have exceeded their original design lives and which subsequently require reassessment to ensure that structural integrity is maintained through the life cycle.The emphasis on safety highlights the need for appropriate structural integrity assessment procedures and the use of appropriate safety factors. A particularly important development has been the major international effort since 1993 to produce an ISO standard for offshore structures. This has entailed the harmonisation of relevant national codes and standards and the development of new procedures where appropriate, resulting in the derivation of revised safety factors for offshore structures. The subject of safety factors within the ISO arena and in terms of the general requirements for offshore structures is addressed in this paper.     

Equipment for Testing Sheet Structural Materials under Biaxial Tension. Part 1. Testing under One-Sided Pressure of the Working Medium

We consider specific features of the design of equipment for the investigation of strength and regularities of fracture of sheet structural materials under biaxial tension created by loading specimens by one-sided pressure of the working medium. We propose solutions of several methodical problems connected with testing under high pressures of the working medium which enable one to realize the required modes of cooling of the specimens, decrease the level of fracture energy, and increase the reliability and safety of testing.     

TOPAAS: An Alternative Approach to Software Reliability Quantification

In the realm of safety related systems, a growing number of functions are realized by software, ranging from ‘firmware’ to autonomous decision‐taking software. To support (political) real‐world decision makers, quantitative risk assessment methodology quantifies the reliability of systems. The optimal choice of safety measures with respect to the available budget, for example, the UK (as low as reasonably practicable approach), requires quantification. If a system contains software, some accepted methods on quantification of software reliability exist, but none of them is generally applicable, as we will show. We propose a model bringing software into the quantitative risk assessment domain by introducing failure of software modules (with their probabilities) as basic events in a fault tree. The method is known as ‘TOPAAS’ (Task‐Oriented Probability of Abnormalities Analysis for Software). TOPAAS is a factor model allowing the quantification of the basic ‘software’ events in fault tree analyses. In this paper, we argue that this is the best approach currently available to industry. Task‐Oriented Probability of Abnormalities Analysis for Software is a practical model by design and is currently put to field testing in risk assessments of programmable electronic safety‐related systems in tunnels and control systems of movable storm surge barriers in the Netherlands. The TOPAAS model is constructed to incorporate detailed fields of knowledge and to provide focus toward reliability quantification in the form of a probability measure of mission failure. Our development also provides context for further in‐depth research. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Failure mode and effects analysis using function–motion–action decomposition method and integrated risk priority number for mechatronic products

Failure mode and effects analysis is a widely applied risk assessment method in various engineering and management domains. However, the identification of failure modes is difficult and uncountable. Therefore, a function–motion–action (FMA) decomposition method is developed to identify failure modes from the perspective of motion and extraordinarily suitable for mechatronic products. In the typical risk assessment, the ranking orders of failure modes are determined by risk priority number (RPN), which has been criticized for several drawbacks and improved by some alternative RPNs, but some drawbacks still exist, such as duplicate values, narrow admissible value range, and missing failure modes’ and risk factors’ weights. This study formulates several alternative weighted RPNs to overcome the above drawbacks, and the final ranking orders of failure modes are garnered through the integrated RPN (IRPN). First, failure modes are identified via the proposed FMA decomposition method and evaluated with crisp values, whose weights are aggregated from the basic failure modes’ weights. Second, the weights of the basic failure modes, risk factors and different RPN methods are derived from analytic hierarchy process. Third, the conditional weights of risk factors are determined by incorporating risk factors’ weights and failure modes’ conditional weights deduced from Shannon entropy. Next, several alternative weighted RPNs and IRPN are formulated to rank failure modes’ risk levels. Finally, an illustrative example about computer numerical control machine center is presented to demonstrate the application and effectiveness of the proposed method.     

On the Problems of Cracking and the Question of Structural Integrity of Engineering Composite Materials

Predicting precisely where a crack will develop in a material under stress and exactly when in time catastrophic fracture of the component will occur is one the oldest unsolved mysteries in the design and building of large engineering structures. Where human life depends upon engineering ingenuity, the burden of testing to prove a “fracture safe design” is immense. For example, when human life depends upon structural integrity as an essential design requirement, it takes ten thousand material test coupons per composite laminate configuration to evaluate an airframe plus loading to ultimate failure tails, wing boxes, and fuselages to achieve a commercial aircraft airworthiness certification. Fitness considerations for long-life implementation of aerospace composites include understanding phenomena such as impact, fatigue, creep, and stress corrosion cracking that affect reliability, life expectancy, and durability of structure. Structural integrity analysis treats the design, the materials used, and figures out how best components and parts can be joined. Furthermore, SI takes into account service duty. However, there are conflicting aims in the complete design process of designing simultaneously for high efficiency and safety assurance throughout an economically viable lifetime with an acceptable level of risk.     

Multi-mode reliability-based design of horizontal curves

Recently, reliability analysis has been advocated as an effective approach to account for uncertainty in the geometric design process and to evaluate the risk associated with a particular design. In this approach, a risk measure (e.g. probability of noncompliance) is calculated to represent the probability that a specific design would not meet standard requirements. The majority of previous applications of reliability analysis in geometric design focused on evaluating the probability of noncompliance for only one mode of noncompliance such as insufficient sight distance. However, in many design situations, more than one mode of noncompliance may be present (e.g. insufficient sight distance and vehicle skidding at horizontal curves). In these situations, utilizing a multi-mode reliability approach that considers more than one failure (noncompliance) mode is required. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate the application of multi-mode (system) reliability analysis to the design of horizontal curves. The process is demonstrated by a case study of Sea-to-Sky Highway located between Vancouver and Whistler, in southern British Columbia, Canada. Two noncompliance modes were considered: insufficient sight distance and vehicle skidding. The results show the importance of accounting for several noncompliance modes in the reliability model. The system reliability concept could be used in future studies to calibrate the design of various design elements in order to achieve consistent safety levels based on all possible modes of noncompliance.     

褶皱缺陷影响L型层合板失效行为:实验和数值研究

通过实验和数值分析相结合的方法开展了褶皱缺陷对L型复合材料层合板承载能力和失效过程影响的研究。实验方面,通过“横条法”人为引入褶皱缺陷,制备了含两种缺陷大小的L型层合板,研究了其在弯曲载荷作用下的承载能力和损伤扩展形式,并与无缺陷L型层合板进行对比分析。数值分析方面,基于3D Hashin失效准则的渐进损伤失效模型, 研究其失效过程中应力分布特征和失效模式,探求褶皱缺陷对L型层合板失效行为的影响机制。实验结果表明,褶皱缺陷会显著降低曲梁的承载能力,并使分层损伤演化的空间扩展特征从无褶皱试样的逐层扩展转变为褶皱区域的聚集式扩展。数值预测与实验现象吻合,并共同表明褶皱处横向应力和面法线应力的集中是导致结构提前失效的主导因素,且褶皱区域的应力集中改变了损伤过程中应力逐层重分配的趋势,导致含褶皱试样呈现出聚集式扩展的破坏特征。该工作可扩展应用于含褶皱缺陷L型层合板的安全性能评估及损伤容限设计。      

Fire safety assessment and optimal design of passive fire protection for offshore structures

The article presents a unified probabilistic approach to fire safety assessment and optimal design of passive fire protection on offshore topside structures. The methodology was developed by integrating quantitative risk analysis (QRA) techniques with the modem methods of structural system reliability analysis (SRA) and reliability based design optimisation (RBDO). Reliability analysis methodologies are presented for both plated (e.g. fire and blast walls) and skeletal structures (deck framing), which take into account uncertainties in fire and blast loading, thermal and mechanical properties of the steel and insulation. Probability of component and system failure are evaluated using first- and second-order reliability methods (FORM/SORM). The optimisation of passive fire protection is performed such that the total expected cost of the protection system is minimised while satisfying reliability constraints.     

Background to the derivation of partial safety factors for BS 7910 and API 579

The background to the derivation of partial safety factors (PSFs) given in two standards, BS 7910 and API 579, is described. In both cases, PSFs are provided to achieve selected target reliability levels against the failure modes of fracture and plastic collapse in structural components. The recommended PSFs in the two standards are compared in order to investigate differences. Example fitness for service assessments are also conducted in order to explore the potential impact of differences on the output of an assessment. Work being carried out to review and update the current partial safety factors for the next revision of BS 7910 is discussed.     

Influence of material spatial variability on required safety factors for masonry walls in compression

Since masonry is one of the oldest and most traditional construction types, corresponding safety concepts are usually based on experience instead of being calibrated by structural reliability methods. For this reason, reliability analyses of masonry structures are needed to check if safety factors should be adjusted. Masonry is a non‐homogenous material. Because of that, it is very important to consider the spatial variability of material properties when assessing the reliability of masonry walls. Therefore, it is useful to know if and to what extent spatial variability increases or decreases the reliability of masonry walls and the required safety factors. The influence of spatial variability depends on the length of a wall due to the capability of load redistribution. Also, it is affected by the governing failure mode, which depends on the slenderness of the wall, and can be local compression or stability failure. This paper demonstrates the effect of spatial variability on the load‐bearing capacity of masonry walls in terms of mean value, scatter and design value. For this purpose, walls of varying length and slenderness were analysed with and without the consideration of spatial variability by performing Monte Carlo simulations. Based upon that, safety factors were determined which are required to meet the target reliability defined by EN 1990.     

微型变压吸附制氧机FTA与FMEA分析

介绍了FTA和FMEA分析方法 ,并对微型变压吸附制氧机进行了风险分析。结果表明 ,导致微型变压吸附制氧机失效的主要可能因素是压缩机失效和控制失效 ,应从设计、检验和生产等过程进行严格控制 ,确保产品的可靠性 ;微型变压吸附制氧机发生危害的性质和发生的频次证实了其使用风险很小 ,其故障危害度均为最低等级 4级 ,是可以接受的     

Risk evaluation in failure mode and effects analysis of aircraft turbine rotor blades using Dempster–Shafer evidence theory under uncertainty

Rotor blades are the major components of an aircraft turbine. Their reliability seriously affects the overall aircraft turbine security. Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), especially, the risk priority order of failure modes, is essential in the design process. The risk priority number (RPN) has been extensively used to determine the risk priority order of failure modes. When multiple experts give different risk evaluations to one failure mode, which may be imprecise and uncertain, the traditional RPN is not a sufficient tool for risk evaluation. In this paper, the modified Dempster–Shafer (D–S) is adopted to aggregate the different evaluation information by considering multiple experts’ evaluation opinions, failure modes and three risk factors respectively. A simplified discernment frame is proposed according to the practical application. Moreover, the mean value of the new RPN is used to determine the risk priority order of multiple failure modes. Finally, this method is used to deal with the risk priority evaluation of the failure modes of rotor blades of an aircraft turbine under multiple sources of different and uncertain evaluation information. The consequence of this method is rational and efficient.     

A rough TOPSIS Approach for Failure Mode and Effects Analysis in Uncertain Environments

This study aims at improving the effectiveness of failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) technique. FMEA is a widely used technique for identifying and eliminating known or potential failures from system, design, and process. However, in conventional FMEA, risk factors of Severity (S), Occurrence (O), and Detection difficulty (D) are simply multiplied to obtain a crisp risk priority number without considering the subjectivity and vagueness in decision makers’ judgments. Besides, the weights for risk factors S, O, and D are also ignored. As a result, the effectiveness and accuracy of the FMEA are affected. To solve this problem, a novel FMEA approach for obtaining a more rational rank of failure modes is proposed. Basically, two stages of evaluation process are described: the determination of risk factors’ weights and ranking the risk for the failure modes. A rough group ‘Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution’ (TOPSIS) method is used to evaluate the risk of failure mode. The novel approach integrates the strength of rough set theory in handling vagueness and the merit of TOPSIS in modeling multi‐criteria decision making. Finally, an application in steam valve system is provided to demonstrate the potential of the methodology under vague and subjective environment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A two-step methodology for CMOS VLSI reliability improvement: Step one

Reliability improvement of CMOS VLSI circuits depends on a thorough understanding of the technology, failure mechanisms, and resulting failure modes involved. Failure analysis has identified open circuits, short circuits and MOSFET degradations as the prominent failure modes. Classical methods of fault simulation and test generation are based on the gate level stuck-at fault model. This model has proved inadequate to model all realistic CMOS failure modes. An approach, which will complement available VLSI design packages, to aid reliability improvement and assurance of CMOS VLSI is outlined. A ‘two-step’ methodology is adopted. Step one, described in this paper, involves accurate circuit level fault simulation of CMOS cells used in a hierarchical design process. The simulation is achieved using SPICE and pre-SPICE insertion of faults (PSIF). PSIF is an additional module to SPICE that has been developed and is outlined in detail. Failure modes effects analysis (FMEA) is executed on the SPICE results and FMEA tables are generated. The second step of the methodology uses the FMEA tables to produce a knowledge base. Step two is essential when reliability studies of larger and VLSI circuits are required and will be the subject of a future paper. The knowledge base has the potential to generate fault trees, fault simulate and fault diagnose automatically.     

Development-process-of-nonlinearity-based reliability evaluation of structures

A reliability evaluation approach based on the development process of the structural nonlinearity is presented. The traditional structural system reliability theory for structural safety regarding combination of failure modes is first revisited. It is seen that it stemmed from, and was heavily affected by, the assumption of perfect elasto-plasticity of materials. This will make the number of the failure modes increase in a non-polynomial form against the number of the potential plastic hinges. Moreover, the above methodology does not work appropriately in the case of nonlinearity in general form other than perfect elasto-plasticity, as commonly encountered in engineering practice. Discussions show that total information of the structure is involved in the development process of its nonlinearity, be it a deterministic case or stochastic counterpart. The information needed for reliability evaluation of structures could be extracted, for example, by capturing the probabilistic information of the extreme value of the corresponding response, which could be obtained by using the probability density evolution method. Therefore, the reliability evaluation for structural safety could then be directly evaluated without searching the failure modes. Taking a 10-bar truss as an example, the proposed method is theoretically elaborated and numerically exemplified.     

Reliability of redundant ductile structures with uncertain system failure criteria

Current reliability based approaches to structural design are typically element based: they commonly include uncertainties in the structural resistance, applied loads and geometric parameters, and in some cases in the idealized structural model. Nevertheless, the true measure of safety is the structural systems reliability which must consider multiple failure paths, load sharing and load redistribution after member failures, and is beyond the domain of element reliability analysis. Identification of system failure is often subjective, and a crisp definition of system failure arises naturally only in a few idealized instances equally important. We analyse the multi-girder steel highway bridge as a k out of n active parallel system. System failure is defined as gross inelastic deformation of the bridge deck; the subjectivity in the failure criterion is accounted for by generalizing k as a random variable. Randomness in k arises from a non-unique relation between number of failed girders and maximum deflection and from randomness in the definition of the failure deflection. We show how uncertain failure criteria and structural systems analyses can be decoupled. Randomness in the transverse location of trucks is considered and elastic perfectly plastic material response is assumed. The role of the system factor modifying the element-reliability based design equation to achieve a target system reliability is also demonstrated.     

Cost and safety optimization of structural design specifications

The design of buildings, bridges, offshore platforms and other civil infrastructure systems is controlled by specifications whose purpose is to provide the engineering principles and procedures required for evaluating the safety of structural systems. The calibration of these codes and specifications is a continuous process necessary to maintain a safe national and global infrastructure system while keeping abreast of new developments in engineering principles, and data on new materials, and applied loads. The common approach to specification calibration is to use probabilistic tools to deal with the random behavior of materials and to account for the uncertainties associated with determining environmental and other load effects. This paper presents a procedure to calibrate load factors for a structural design specification based on cost and safety optimization. The procedure is illustrated by determining load factors that may be applicable for incorporation in a bridge design specification. Traditional code calibration procedures require a set of pre-determined safety levels that should be used as target values that each load combination case should satisfy. The procedure in this paper deduces the failure cost implied in present designs, and provides consistent safety levels for all load combination cases. For greater accuracy, load effects showing variance in time have been modeled by separating them into two random variables; time dependent r.v. (wind speed, vehicular loads, etc.) and time independent r.v. (modeling uncertainties). The total expected lifetime cost is used in the optimization to account for both initial construction cost and future equivalent failure costs.     

Reliability analysis and reliability-based design optimization of roadway horizontal curves using a first-order reliability method

This article presents reliability analysis and reliability-based optimization of roadway minimum radius design based on vehicle dynamics, mainly focusing on exit ramps and interchanges. The performance functions are formulated as failure modes of vehicle rollover and sideslip. To accurately describe the failure modes, analytical models for rollover and sideslip are derived considering nonlinear characteristics of vehicle behaviour using the commercial software TruckSim. The probability of an accident is evaluated using the first-order reliability method and numerical studies are conducted using a single-unit truck model. To propose a practical application for the study, the reliability analysis for the minimum radius recommended by American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials is conducted. The results show that, even if there are deviations from assumed design conditions of the current design guideline, the proposed design method can guarantee given target margins of safety against rollover and sideslip. Based on the reliability analysis, reliability-based design optimization is carried out and the results indicate new recommendations for minimum radii satisfying given target reliability levels.     

Experimental Investigation of Dynamically Loaded Bolted Joints in Carbon Fibre Composite Structures

This paper reports on recent experimental work to investigate the response of bolted carbon fibre composite joints and structures when subjected to constant dynamic loading rates between 0.1 m/s and 10 m/s. Single fastener joints were tested in both the bearing (shear) and pull-through (normal) loading directions. It was found that the joints exhibited only minor loading rate dependence when loaded in the pull-through direction but there was a significant change in failure mode when the joints were loaded in bearing at or above 1 m/s. Below 1 m/s loading rate the failure mode consisted of initial bolt bearing followed by bolt failure. At a loading rate of 1 m/s and above the bolt failed in a ‘tearing’ mode that absorbed significantly more energy than the low rate tests. A simple composite structure was created to investigate the effect of loading rate on a more complex joint arrangement. The structure was loaded in two different modes and at constant dynamic loading rates between 0.1 m/s and 10 m/s. For the structure investigated and the loading modes considered, only minor loading rate effects were observed, even when the dominant contribution to joint loads came from bearing. It was observed that the load realignment present in the structural tests allowed the joints to fail in a mode that was not bearing dominant, and hence the loading rate sensitivity was not expressed.     

Mathematical programming methods for the inelastic analysis of reinforced concrete frames allowing for limited rotation capacity

The inelastic flexural behaviour of reinforced concrete beams is described, as usual, by a trilinear (or, in general, multilinear) moment–rotation relationship. The analysis of beams and frames subject to given external actions is formulated as a ‘linear complementary problem’ and, in two dual ways, as a ‘quadratic programming problem’. These problems are solved by means of classical and recent algorithms in use in operations research. By the procedures pointed out it is also possible to calculate the distribution of plastic deformations along the beams. Two methods are proposed for the evaluation of the safety factor against local failure due to limited rotation capacity: the solution technique of the direct one essentially consists of an application of the simplex method for linear programming. Finally, a procedure is established for determining, allowing for the irreversibility of plastic rotations, the structural response to non-proportional loading histories which consist of individually proportional stages. Illustrative examples are given.