General reliability analysis for elastic linkage mechanisms with fuzzy and random basic variables

A general response surface method (GRSM) is presented to calculate the failure probability of elastic linkages with fuzzy and random basic variables. Based on the Kineto-elasto dynamic finite element method, the GRSM is programmed for the strength, stiffness and the system reliability analysis of the elastic linkages. The concrete calculating results are drawn for the failure probability of the elastic linkage along with time. The comparisons of the GRSM and the direct Monte Carlo simulation show that these two methods are in agreement with each other rather well, and the computation cost of the GRSM is significantly decreased.