The disciplines of structural design and reliabilily engineering need to be brought in closer contact. Dynamic structures often require high strength and minimizedmass. Classical design procedures based on the use of safety factors and given probabilities offailure are usedfor these structures and do not include relinbility allocation or prediction. fie paper explains the use of loadpaths and reliability block diagrams to model structure safety reliability. The use of structurefunctional

more »

... s is desuibed. An interpretation is given of allocation and prediction of structure safety reliability as seenfrom a structural design point of view. Structure safety reliability is the probability that a failure jeopardising the integrity of a structure and therefore its operational safety will not occur. Reliability, R, is the Probability that a failure will not occur, therefore it is the complement of P, the probability of failure, or R : 1,0 P. Reliability allocation and prediction should be part of the design phase of dynamic structures. It will enable the designer to determine the impact of structure safety reliability on maintenance and cost. Although this is not a well established approach