Reliability and Reliability-based Sensitivity Analysis of Valve in Internal Combustion Engine

This paper presents an approach to evaluate the reliability and reliability-based sensitivity of valve structure with respect to design parameters. The finite element (FE) model is subjected to the excitation and the stress of dangerous area is obtained. Then, a design of experiment (DOE) is carried out to study the corresponding stresses of dangerous area according to the change of design parameters. The data obtained in DOE are then fitted by utilizing Back-Propagation (BP) algorithm, which consequently solves the problem of the implicit limit state function. Based on the probability perturbation method and the fourth moment method, the reliability of the structure is calculated. Reliability-based sensitivity analysis is performed with gradient algorithm and the variation regularities of reliability-based sensitivity are obtained and the effects of design variables on the reliability are studied. The proposed method is proved to be effective to calculate the reliability and reliability sensitivity of valve structures.