Fuzzy reliability analysis of nanocomposite ZnO beams using hybrid analytical-intelligent method

A hybrid analytical-intelligent approach is proposed for fuzzy reliability analysis of the composite beams reinforced by zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticle. The fuzzy reliability index corresponding to buckling failure mode of nanocomposite beam under thickness-direction external voltage is computed based on three-levels: (1) fuzzy analysis, (2) reliability analysis and (3) analytical buckling analysis. In fuzzy analysis level, an improved gravitational search algorithm has been applied to determine uncertainty interval for membership levels of reliability index. The adaptive formulation with a dynamical self-adjusting process is used for reliability analysis level based on conjugate first-order reliability method (FORM). The self-adjusting term in conjugate sensitivity vector is used to satisfy the sufficient descent condition for controlling instability of FORM formula while the proposed conjugate scalar factor is computed less than the original conjugate FORM, thus it may be provided with the efficient results for the convex problem. The new and previous sensitivity vectors obtained by conjugate and steepest descent vectors dynamically adjusted the proposed conjugate factor. In the buckling analysis level, an exponential theory in conjunction with the method of energy is utilized. Fuzzy random variables including applied voltage, the volume fraction of ZnO, thickness of beam, spring constant and shear constant of the foundation are considered in studied nanocomposite beam. Survey results indicated that the proposed method can provide stable and acceptable fuzzy membership functions for parametric study. Moreover, the ratio of length to thickness and spring constant of foundation are the more sensitive parameters which affect fuzzy reliability index significantly.

     

AK-GWO: a novel hybrid optimization method for accurate optimum hierarchical stiffened shells

Engineering with Computers - An attempt has been made to propose a novel prediction model based on the Gaussian process regression (GPR) approach. The proposed GPR was used to predict blast-induced...     

Hybrid intelligent method for fuzzy reliability analysis of corroded X100 steel pipelines

Epistemic uncertainties are critical for reliable design of corroded pipes made of high-strength grade steel. In this work, corrosion defects geometries and operating pressure are provided as the epistemic uncertainties in reliability analysis. A framework of an iterative approach-based bi-loop is presented for fuzzy reliability analysis (FRA) of corroded pipelines to evaluate the fuzzy reliability index-based various fuzzy-random variables (FRVs). In the inner loop, the conjugate first-order reliability method using adaptive finite-step size is applied for carried out the reliability analysis. The outer loop is structured based on the fuzzy analysis corresponding to a modified particle swarm optimization as an intelligent tool. The adaptive conjugate fine step size is dynamically computed to adjust the conjugate sensitivity vector in the reliability loop. The sufficient descent condition is satisfied based on three-term conjugate first-order reliability method. The performance function of corroded pipelines is defined based on average shear stress yield-based plastic flow theory, remaining strength factor, and operating pressure. Two applicable examples as corroded pipelines made from X100 high-strength steel are given to illustrate the effects of epistemic uncertainties under corrosion defects. Investigation the results has shown that modeling of epistemic uncertainty in the reliability analysis of high-grade steel pipelines could result more reasonable reliability indexes. In addition, results indicate that FRVs have significant influence on fuzzy reliability index calculations, especially corrosion defect depth and operating pressure (as FRVs). The sensitivity measure of FRA demonstrated that fuzzy reliability index of corroded X100 steel pipelines is more sensitive to the FRVs means.

     

A hybrid sufficient performance measure approach to improve robustness and efficiency of reliability-based design optimization

The stable convergence and efficiency of reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) using performance measure approach (PMA) are the major issue to develop the reliability methods based on modified chaos control (MCC), hybrid chaos control (HCC) and finite-step length adjustment (FSL). However, these methods may be inefficient for RBDO problems with convex and concave probabilistic constraints. In this paper, an adaptive modified chaos control (AMC) is proposed to provide the robust and efficient results in RBDO. The proposed AMC is adjusted using dynamical chaos control factor, which is extracted using sufficient descent condition for PMA. Using sufficient criterion, the proposed AMC is adaptively combined with advanced mean value (AMV) to improve the performance of PMA, named as hybrid adaptive modified chaos control (HAMC). Considering the robustness and efficiency, the proposed HAMC is compared with several existing reliability methods by three nonlinear structural/mathematical performance functions and two RBDO problems. The results indicate that the proposed HAMC with sufficient descent condition provides superior convergences in terms of both robustness and efficiency, compared to existing PMA methods using AMV, MCC, HCC and FSL.

     

Limited descent-based mean value method for inverse reliability analysis

Engineering with Computers - The robustness and efficiency of inverse reliability methods are important issues in reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) using performance measure approach...     

Optimized River Stream-Flow Forecasting Model Utilizing High-Order Response Surface Method

Accurate and reliable stream-flow forecasting has a key role in water resources planning and management. Most recently, soft computing approaches have become progressively prevalent in modelling hydrological variables and most specifically stream-flows. This is due to their ability to capture the non-linearity and non-stationarity characteristics of the hydrological variables with minimum information requirements. Despite this, they present several challenges in the modelling architecture, as there is a need to establish a suitable pre-processing method for the stream-flow data and an appropriate optimization model has to be integrated in order re-adjust the weights and biases associated with the model structure. On top of that, artificial intelligent models require “trial and error” procedures in order to be properly tuned (number of hidden layers, number of neurons within the hidden layers and the type of the transfer function). However, soft computing approach experienced several problems while calibration such as over-fitting. In this research, the Response Surface Method (RSM) is improved based on high-order polynomial functions for forecasting the river stream-flow namely; High-Order Response Surface (HORS) method. Several higher orders have been examined, second, third, fourth and fifth polynomial functions in order to figure out the best fit that able to mimic the pattern of stream-flow. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model, monthly stream-flow time series data located in Aswan High Dam (AHD) has been examined. A detailed analysis of the overall statistical indicators revealed that the proposed method showed outstanding performance for monthly stream-flow forecasting at AHD. It could be concluded that the fifth order polynomial function outperforms the other orders of the polynomial functions especially with May model who achieved minimum MAE 0.12, NRMSE 0.07, MSE 0.03 and maximum SF and R² (0.97, 0.99) respectively.     

Subset Modeling Basis ANFIS for Prediction of the Reference Evapotranspiration

The study investigates accuracy of a new modeling scheme, subset adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (subset ANFIS), in estimating the daily reference evapotranspiration (ET₀). Daily weather data of relative humidity, solar radiation, air temperature, and wind speed from three stations in Central Anatolian Region of Turkey were utilized as input to the applied models. The input data set for modeling the ET₀ was divided to several subsets to calibrate the local data using a local modeling-based ANFIS. The estimates obtained from subset ANFIS models were compared with those of the M5 model tree (M5Tree), ANFIS models and ANN. Mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE), and model efficiency factor criteria were applied for analysis of models. The accuracy of M5Tree (from 15.3% to 32.5% in RMSE, from 14.4% to 24.2% in MAE), ANN (from 24.3% to 65.3% in RMSE, from 34.1% to 47% in MAE) and ANFIS (from 17.4% to 35.4% in RMSE, from 10.8% to 28.3% in MAE) models was significantly increased using subset ANFIS for estimating da ily ET_0.     

Refined first-order reliability method using cross-entropy optimization method

Engineering with Computers - Generally, the first-order reliability method (FORM) is an efficient and accurate reliability method for problems with linear limit state functions (LSFs). It is showed...     

Nonlinear modeling for bar bond stress using dynamical self-adjusted harmony search optimization

Design code provisions for reinforced concrete are often based on empirical relations resulting from simple statistical treatments of experimental data. Hence, they may provide inaccurate results for predicting complex structural behavior. In the present study, novel nonlinear regression for prediction of the reinforcing bar development length is developed using dynamical self-adjusted harmony search optimization. The nonlinear mathematical relations are regressed using 534 results of simple pullout tests on short unit bar lengths. A novel bi-nonlinear expression is proposed, and its predictive capability outperformed that of design code formulas such as the ACI 318-14, ACI 408R-03, and Eurocode 2 along with other existing empirical models. A parametric study was conducted to explore the sensitivity of the proposed models to influential input parameters. It was found that the new model offers a powerful predictive tool for reinforcing bar bond strength which differs from that of existing models that assume unrealistic uniform bond stress along the rebar. This flexible and data-intensive model could be further scrutinized for consideration in future design code revisions and enhancements.

     

A self-adaptive modified chaos control method for reliability-based design optimization

In the reliability-based design optimization (RBDO), the Advanced mean value (AMV) method sometimes yields unstable results such as chaotic and periodic solutions for highly nonlinear probabilistic constraints. The chaos control (CC), modified chaos control (MCC) and adaptive chaos control (ACC) methods are more robust than the AMV but inefficient for some moderately nonlinear performance functions. In this paper, a self-adaptive modified chaos control (SMCC) method is developed based on a dynamical control factor to improve the efficiency of MCC for reliability analysis and RBDO. The self-adaptive control factor is dynamically computed based on the new and previous results. The efficiency and robustness of the proposed SMCC are compared with the AMV, CC, MCC and ACC methods using several nonlinear structural/mathematical performance functions and RBDO problems. The results illustrate that the SMCC is more efficient than CC, MCC, and ACC methods, and also more robust than AMV method for highly nonlinear problems.