Reliability analysis for fatigue damage of railway welded bogies using Bayesian update based inspection

From the viewpoint of engineering applications, the prediction of the failure of bogies plays an important role in preventing the occurrence of fatigue. Fatigue is a complex phenomenon affected by many uncertainties (such as load, environment, geometrical and material properties, and so on). The key to predict fatigue damage accurately is how to quantify these uncertainties. A Bayesian model is used to account for the uncertainty of various sources when predicting fatigue damage of structural components. In spite of improvements in the design of fatigue-sensitive structures, periodic non-destructive inspections are required for components. With the help of modern nondestructive inspection techniques, the fatigue flaws can be detected for bogie structures, and fatigue reliability can be updated by using Bayesian theorem with inspection data. A practical fatigue analysis of welded bogies is utilized to testify the effectiveness of the proposed methods.