Time-variant random interval response of concrete-filled steel tubular composite curved structures

Comprehensive investigation into uncertain time-dependent structural responses of concrete-filled steel tubular composite curved structures is presented. Diverse uncertainties including variational material properties, inevitable viscoelastic effects, as well as random environmental influences are addressed simultaneously. A new hybrid probabilistic and interval computational method is proposed for robustly assessing both time-dependent serviceability and strength limit of concrete-filled steel tubular arch structures involving both random and interval variables. The proposed approach offers a unified analysis framework, which adequately delivers the time-dependent bounds of statistical characteristics (i.e., lower and upper bounds of means and standard deviations) of structural behaviours. In this non simulative computational scheme, general formulations on the time-dependent bounds of means and standard deviations are explicitly derived. Applicability, accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are revealed by practically motivated examples. In addition, time-dependent hybrid probabilistic interval features of structural responses of concrete-filled steel tubular composite arch structures are systematically studied. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.