DESIGN UNCERTAINTY EFFECTS QUANTIFICATION USING MONTE CARLO SIMULATION

This paper presents an approach to evaluate the effect of uncontrolled and un-avoided variation within design variables on the performance of nonlinear finite element models. The approach employs Monte Carlo simulation to reveal this effect using descriptive statistics to present useful information to the designer. A case study of a thin walled tube under dynamic impact loading is used to demonstrate the proposed approach. The thin walled tube is modeled using LS-DYNA for finite element simulation. Wall thickness distributions are selected as design variables where the amount of impact energy absorbed, maximum rigid wall force and final deformation are selected as the important responses. The results clearly show that the proposed approach can provide the designer with useful information of the effect of variation within the design variables on the structure responses. Ultimately, the designer can use this helpful information in creating a design that is minimally sensitive to those uncontrolled and un-avoided variation within design variables.