Based on M-Copula Reliability Analysis of Random Load Correlation

Abstract

Load is one of the main causes of structural failure, and the correlation among loads would affect the evaluation results of structural performance. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of the correlation among multiple loads on the structural reliability. In this paper, the nonparametric kernel density estimation (NKDE) method is used to estimate the probability density function (PDF) of related loads. In addition, the mixed copula (M-Copula) model is proposed, which combines Gumbel copula, Frank copula, Clayton copula, and weight coefficient, and the model parameters are fitted by MATLAB software to get the correlation of related loads. The reliability based on the related load combination is calculated according to the constructed model. After analyzing three numerical cases, the results show that the probability characteristics of NKDE estimation are very close to the actual conditions, and the reliability calculated by the M-Copula model is larger than those calculated by JCSS, Turkstra, and Gong methods. Using the M-Copula model for load correlation would avoid underestimating the reliability of the structure, which is conducive to structural economic development.