Interval fields on FE model input data and on displacement output patterns in static FE-analysis

This paper discusses the application of interval fields for the analysis of uncertain mechanical structures. More specifically, this work illustrates the use of interval fields to represent uncertainties with spatially distributed uncertain parameters in the context of finite element analysis. The methods to represent a spatial uncertainty by interval fields both at the input and the output side of a static finite element analysis are combined in this paper. At the input side, the concept of interval fields is applied to represent a spatial uncertainty with an interval correlation length. At the output side, the uncertain displacements are represented with an interval field. The complete method from interval field representation of the input to interval field representation of the output is detailed and the application of the complete methodology is illustrated using a numerical example.