Investigation of reliability analysis algorithms for effective reliability‐based optimal design of electromagnetic devices

To extend the reliability‐based optimal design to engineering electromagnetic problems, the essential prerequisite is to develop a numerically efficient method of reliability calculation. From a practical point of view, this study presents a comparative study on different algorithms of reliability analysis. For reliability analysis of electromagnetic problems, the author proposed one sensitivity‐assisted Monte Carlo simulation (SA‐MCS) method in the previous research. To seek a higher accuracy of reliability analysis, in this study, the second‐order derivatives are incorporated into the SA‐MCS method. About calculation of second‐order derivatives (also called sensitivity analysis in the finite element analysis), a hybrid direct differentiation–adjoint variable method is applied. Finally, analysis performances of the suggested SA‐MCS and traditional methods such as the reliability index approach and the performance measure approach are investigated through applications to analytic examples and a superconducting magnetic energy storage system.