Reliability analysis method based on evidence theory under multi-source uncertainty

A unified reliability analysis method based on evidence theory was proposed to deal with the reliability problem of structures containing random, fuzzy and interval variables. By using the information entropy method, the membership function of fuzzy variable was converted into probability density function of equivalent random variable. On the basis of interval method of random variable, each variable was separated into discrete intervals, and the Basic Probability Assignment (BPA) was solved by the probability density function of variables. According to the evidence theory, the reliability analysis was carried out to get the belief measure of reliability Bel(R) and the plausibility measure of reliability Pl(R). Two engineering applications were demonstrated to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.