Robust Structural Design Based on Event-Oriented System Analysis

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the calculation procedure of the robustness based structural design by analyzing failure events on a self-evident simple example. Therefore, the note at the beginning shortly reviews the probabilistic Event Oriented System Analysis (EOSA) and the definition of the robustness based on the entropy concept in the probability theory. The study jointly employs operational failure modes analysis, effects analysis, and the Advanced First Order Reliability Methods (AFORM). An example of a structural member presented by a number of random failure events illustrates the usage of the conditional entropy as a measure of structural robustness. The conclusion recommends the robustness based design for safety enhancement.