Stochastic Modeling of Load Combinations

Abstract

When only one time-varying load acts on a structure, and failure is defined as the load process crossing some level, then the extreme value distribution of the load contains information which is sufficient for decisions about reliability. The theory of stochastic load combinations is applied in situations where a structure is subjected to two or more time-varying scalar loads acting simultaneously. The scalar loads can be components of the same load process or be components of different load processes. To evaluate the reliability of the structure, each load cannot be characterized by its extreme-value distribution alone; a more detailed characterization of the stochastic process is necessary. The reason is that the loads in general do not attain their extreme values at the same time.