Reliability analysis for nonnormal distributions using multi-level DOE

The reliability analysis for nonnormal distributions using the three level DOE(Design Of Experiments) method was developed by Seo and Kwak in 2002. Although this method estimates only up to the first four moments(mean, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis) of the system response function, the result and the type of probability distribution determined by using the Pearson system are shown very good. However the accuracy is low in case of nonlinear performance function and sometimes, the level calculated is outside of the region in which the random variable is defined. In this article we suggest a modified three level DOE method to overcome these weaknesses and to obtain optimum choice for 3 levels and weights to handle nonnormal distributions. Furthermore we extend it to finding the optimum choice for 5 levels and weights to increase the accuracy in case of nonlinear performance function. A systematic procedure for reliability analysis is then proposed by using the Pearson system