book review
DESCRIPTION
During the last two decades system reliability theory has become an increasingly importantarea in research, instruction, design and evaluation of structural engineering systems. Thiswell-written book covers the two major areas necessary to understand structural system reliability:theory and practical applications. Numerous solved examples are used throughout the text toexplain the mathematical concepts and techniques. The main purpose of the text under reviewhas been a coherent treatment of time-invariant structural system reliability theory. The book isdivided into eight chapters. Emphasis has been placed on fundamentals of structural reliabilitytheory (Chapter 1), structural systems modeling (Chapter 2), reliability of highly idealizedsystems such as series and parallel systems (Chapters 3 and 4), automatic generation of safetymargins (Chapter 5), methods for reliability analysis of structural systems (Chapters 6 and 7),and probability-based optimum design of structural systems (Chapter 8).A particular effort has been made to consolidate the material which hasTRANSCRIPT
Structural Safety, 7 (1990) 81 81 Elsevier
BOOK REVIEW
Application of Structural Systems Refiability Theory, by P. Thoft-Christensen and Y. Murotsu, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, Tokyo, viii + 343 pp., ISBN 3-540-16362-X and ISBN 0-387-16362-X.
During the last two decades system reliability theory has become an increasingly important area in research, instruction, design and evaluation of structural engineering systems. This well-written book covers the two major areas necessary to understand structural system reliabil- ity: theory and practical applications. Numerous solved examples are used throughout the text to explain the mathematical concepts and techniques. The main purpose of the text under review has been a coherent treatment of time-invariant structural system reliability theory. The book is divided into eight chapters. Emphasis has been placed on fundamentals of structural reliability theory (Chapter 1), structural systems modeling (Chapter 2), reliability of highly idealized systems such as series and parallel systems (Chapters 3 and 4), automatic generation of safety margins (Chapter 5), methods for reliability analysis of structural systems (Chapters 6 and 7), and probability-based optimum design of structural systems (Chapter 8).
A particular effort has been made to consolidate the material which has been published in technical journal articles, and to provide a comprehensive review of past work of the authors that has principally been concerned with the development of two methods for reliability analysis of structural systems: the beta-unzipping method (Chapter 6), developed by Thoft-Christensen at the University of Aalborg, Denmark, and the branch-and-bound method (Chapter 7), developed by Murotsu at the University of Osaka Prefecture, Japan.
In summary, the book provides a sound, practical introduction to time-invariant structural system reliability theory which can be used by professionals to translate this theory into improved practice. The book should also be useful for teaching structural system reliability concepts and techniques to graduate students.
DAN M. FRANGOPOL University of Colorado
Boulder, CO, U.S.A.
0167-4730/90/$03.50 © 1990 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.