FUZZY ARITHMETICAL ANALYSIS OF MULTIBODY SYSTEMS WITH UNCERTAINTIES

The consideration of uncertainties in numerical simulation is generally reason-able and is often indicated in order to provide reliable results, and thus is gaining attraction in various fields of simulation technology. However, in multibody system analysis uncertainties have only been accounted for quite sporadically compared to other areas. The term uncertainties is frequently associated with those of random nature, i.e. aleatory uncertainties, which are successfully handled by the use of probability theory. Actually, a considerable proportion of uncertainties incorporated into dy-namical systems, in general, or multibody systems, in particular, is attributed to so-called epistemic uncertainties, which include, amongst others, uncertainties due to a lack of knowledge, due to subjectivity in numerical implementation, and due to simplification or idealization. Hence, for the modeling of epistemic uncertainties in multibody systems an appropriate theory is required, which still remains a challeng-ing topic. Against this background, a methodology will be presented which allows for the inclusion of epistemic uncertainties in modeling and analysis of multibod