Reliability Analysis of Cracked Structures by an Interactive Finite Element-Based Method

This paper proposes an interactive finite element-based method to perform structural reliability of irregular and randomly occurring fatigue cracks as the analysis of such crack configurations by closedform methods is unrealistic. The performance function is characterized by a material resistance criterion and failure probability is given by the condition that the applied stress intensity factor exceeds the fracture toughness of the material. A benchmark problem is applied to validate the proposed technique. The effect of a single plate and stiffener web crack on the failure probability of ships is studied. The technique is suited for analyzing a system of multiple random cracks.