At the dawn of the 21st century, computational stochastic dynamics is an emerging research frontier. This book focuses on advanced computational methods and software tools which can highly assist in tackling complex problems in stochastic dynamic/seismic analysis and design of structures. The book is primarily intended for researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of computational mechanics and stochastic structural dynamics. Nevertheless, practice engineers as well could benefit from it as most code provisions tend to incorporate probabilistic concepts in the analysis and design of structures. The book addresses mathematical and numerical issues in stochastic structural dynamics and connects them to real-world applications. It consists of 16 chapters dealing with recent advances in a wide range of related topics (dynamic response variability and reliability of stochastic systems, risk assessment, stochastic simulation of earthquake ground motions, efficient solvers for the analysis of stochastic systems, dynamic stability, stochastic modelling of heterogeneous materials). Numerical examples demonstrating the significance of the proposed methods are presented in each chapter.

Inhalt
Preface.- Model Reduction and Uncertainties in Structural Dynamics, by G.I. Schuëller (in Cooperation with B. Goller and H.J. Pradlwarter).- Resonant Damping of Flexible Structures under Random Excitation, by Steen Krenk and Jan Høgsberg.- Importance sampling of nonlinear structures using adapted process, by Siu-Kui Au.- Use of time-variant spectral characteristics of non-stationary random processes in the first-passage problem for earthquake engineering applications, by Michele Barbato.- Stochastic seismic analysis of large linear structural systems under fully non-stationary spectrum compatible ground motion, by Pierfrancesco Cacciola and Giuseppe Muscolino.- Soil spatial variability and structural reliability of buried networks subjected to earthquakes, by S.M. Elachachi, D. Breysse and H. Benzeguir.- An Efficient First-Order Scheme for Reliability Based Optimization of Stochastic Systems, by H.A. Jensen, G.I. Schuëller, M.A. Valdebenito and D.S. Kusanovic.- Application of a Mode-based Meta-model for the Reliability Assessment of Structures Subjected to Stochastic Ground Acceleration, by L. Pichler, H.J. Pradlwarter and G.I. Schuëller.- Nonlinear Dynamic Response Variability and Reliability of Frames with Stochastic Non-Gaussian Parameters, by George Stefanou and Michalis Fragiadakis.- The role of uncertainties in Aeolian risk assessment, by F. Petrini, M. Ciampoli and G. Augusti.- The Method of Separation: A Novel Approach for Accurate Estimation of Evolutionary Power Spectra, by Dominik Schillinger and Vissarion Papadopoulos.- A Seismologically Consistent Husid Envelope Function for the Stochastic Simulation of Earthquake Ground-Motions, by Sara Sgobba, Peter J. Stafford and Giuseppe C. Marano.- Sparse Representations in Stochastic Mechanics, by Hermann G. Matthies and Elmar Zander.- Auto-parametric Stability Loss and Post-critical Behavior of a Three Degrees of Freedom System, by Jii Náprstek and Cyril Fischer.- Probability based size effectrepresentation for failure in civil engineering structures built of heterogeneous materials, by Adnan Ibrahimbegovic, Jean-Baptiste Colliat, Martin Hautefeuille, Delphine Brancherie and Sergiy Melnyk.- The scatter of eigenfrequencies in beams made of metal foam, by Daniel Schwarzer and Carsten Proppe.