RELIABILITY OF A FRICTIONAL SYSTEM WITH UNCERTAINTY.

In recent years, more emphasis has been placed on the study of random vibration of structures with uncertain parameters. Most of these have dealt with second order statistics of the response process while the most important characteristic, the reliability function, has remained undetermined. A quite powerful finite element method for the solution of the first passage problem has been developed which, when combined with the theorem of total probability, gives the desired reliability function. These ideas are applied to simple sliding structures on a frictional foundation.