Reliability analysis of laminated composite shells by response surface method based on HSDT

Reliability analysis of composite structures considering random variation of involved parameters is quite important as composite materials revealed large statistical variations in their mechanical properties. The reliability analysis of such structures by the first order reliability method (FORM) and Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) based approach involves repetitive evaluations of performance function. The response surface method (RSM) based metamodeling technique has emerged as an effective solution to such problems. In the application of metamodeling for uncertainty quantification and reliability analysis of composite structures; the finite element model is usually formulated by either classical laminate theory or first order shear deformation theory. But such theories show significant error in calculating the structural responses of composite structures. The present study attempted to apply the RSM based MCS for reliability analysis of composite shell structures where the surrogate model is constructed using higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT) of composite structures considering the uncertainties in the material properties, load, ply thickness and radius of curvature of the shell structure. The sensitivity of responses of the shell is also obtained by RSM and finite element method based direct approach to elucidate the advantages of RSM for response sensitivity analysis. The reliability results obtained by the proposed RSM based MCS and FORM are compared with the accurate reliability analysis results obtained by the direct MCS by considering two numerical examples.