Structural robustness is the concept to evaluate whether local damages to the structure will cause
disproportional consequences. It is one of the most important indexes to keep the structural safety, especially to
consider a special loading named as “human active damage”. In the present paper, the loaded structure is analyzed
by a weighted graph. The joints and members of the structure correspond to the vertexes and edges of the graph,
and the ratio of the most dangerous stress state to the material strength of each member is treated as the weight
of each edge. Based on the quantitative description of the structural topology, the structure graph is expressed
as a hierarchical model which is built by a set of vertex-connected units. The local damage can be expressed as
the deterioration of the unit(s), while the final possible failure mode of the structure can be obtained by a specific
assignment of its weighted graph. In this way, the relationship between the structural behavior and the combined
damages of the subordinate units in each hierarchy can be formed as an envelope diagram. This diagram exactly
shows the contribution of each subordinate unit to the robustness of the whole structure. Furthermore, the most
vulnerable part, as well as the topologic difference between the subordinates, can be found visually.
GAO Yang* (高扬), LIU Xi-la (刘西拉)
. Weighted Graph Form of Structures and Its Application in Robustness Analysis[J]. Journal of Shanghai Jiaotong University(Science), 2013
, 18(2)
: 216
-223
.
DOI: 10.1007/s12204-013-1385-2
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