Reliability Evaluation of a Laminate Composite Plate Under Distributed Pressure Using a Hybrid Response Surface method

The inherent variability of major infrastructure can be associated with structural properties such as member size and geometry, elastic constants, density, strength characteristics or external load types. These variables and factors may give rise to risk, safety and uncertainty for general structures. In this paper, a comprehensive reliability evaluation framework is presented for a laminate composite plate under hydrostatic pressure. An establishment and verification of a response surface, the determination of performance function in terms of input and output random variables, and the comparative application of combined algorithms such as Monte Carlo simulation, artificial neural network and fuzzy theory are conducted.