FUZZY FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF BEAMS AND PILES ON WINKLER FOUNDATION

In this paper, an approach based on perturbation method for solving finite element equations with small fuzzy parameters is applied to fuzzy finite element analysis of beams and laterally loaded piles on Winkler foundation. The material properties such as the elastic modulus, the moment of inertia and the coefficient of subgrade reaction are considered as small fuzzy numbers, that is, the width of interval at each α-cuts is small. The membership function of the fuzzy displacements, fuzzy moments and fuzzy interforce at arbitrary sections of beams or piles can be obtained. These results are compared with those obtained by numerical simulation. It is seen that the proposed technique works well for small fuzzy parameters. It is fairly accurate and applicable to engineering problems with fuzzy parameters.