Reliability of large structural systems

For structural systems, calculation of the structural failure probability requires the determination of all the failure modes contributing significantly to the overall failure probability. For large systems it is not practical to enumerate fully all modes. The paper will present a procedure, termed the truncated enumeration method, which has been shown to be derivable rigorously from exhaustive enumeration when truncation of solution possibilities, not significant for the reliability assessment, is imposed. The method has been able to reproduce independently all known solutions obtained by others, but usually in a more systematic manner. The relationship of this method to other system reliability calculation techniques will be discussed, some limitations noted and some calculation results presented. (Author/TRRL)