Abstract: (5596 Views)
Abstract
In this paper the effect of two types of common initial geometric imperfections on the reliability of steel frames
is investigated. These imperfections are the coordinates of connection nodes and crookedness of members. Most
finite element reliability analyses in past literature neglect this source of uncertainty. For this purpose static nonlinear
pushover structural analysis is used from which reliabilities are estimated based on FORM and Monte
Carlo sampling methods. Furthermore to investigate the importance of uncertain parameters, reliability
sensitivity analysis is performed by use of the direct differentiation method which has been implemented in the
object oriented software framework Open Sees. It is demonstrated that some of these geometric imperfections
have significant influence on reliability assessment of steel frames.
Received: 2007/03/7 | Accepted: 2009/02/4 | Published: 2011/03/7