A practical engineering method for fuzzy reliability analysis of mechanical structures

The fuzzy sets theory in reliability analyses is studied. The structure stress is related to several other variables, such as structure sizes, material properties, external loads; in most cases, it is difficult to be expressed in a mathematical formula, and the related variables are not random variables, but fuzzy variables or other uncertain variables which have not only randomness but also fuzziness. In this paper, a novel approach is presented to use the finite element analysis as a "numerical experiment" tool, and to find directly, by fuzzy linear regression method, the statistical property of the structure stress. Based on the fuzzy stress-random strength interference model proposed in this paper, the fuzzy reliability of the mechanical structure can be evaluated. The compressor blade of a given turbocharger is then introduced as a realistic example to illustrate the approach. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.