Hybrid reliability analysis for energy-absorbing composite structures based on evidence theory

Abstract

It is important to investigate the uncertain modeling and reliability analysis for the crashworthiness capacity of composite energy-absorbing structures (CEAS) in which there are random and epistemic uncertainty. A probability-evidence theory hybrid uncertainty model and a corresponding efficient reliability analysis method for the crashworthiness capacity of CEAS are presented in this paper. In this method, evidence theory is introduced to address the difficulties in the epistemic uncertain modeling due to the lack of experimental samples, which expand greatly the applicability of reliability analysis technology in the crashworthiness capacity of CEAS research. Moreover, the probability theory is applied to address the random uncertainty. Based on the traditional equivalence normalization method, a probability-evidence theory hybrid reliability analysis model for the crashworthiness capacity of CEAS is developed. An explicit finite element analysis is used to calculate the peak crushing force and the specific energy absorption of CEAS which are presented by the quadratic response surface. Two numerical examples of CEAS are presented for verification of the validity of the proposed method.