Uncertainty propagation in moisture absorption of flax/glass fiber reinforced hybrid composites

The uncertainty of material and geometrical properties such as moisture weight random distribution of flax/glass fiber reinforced composites are inevitable. As the traditional deterministic model ignores the influence of uncertainty, the results are inconsistent with the experimental data. In this paper, based on the deterministic sandwich diffusion model, uncertainty propagation and quantification both in the material and geometrical properties are performed to comprehensively study the moisture absorption characteristics in the hybrid composites. By the Latin hypercube sampling method, the material and geometrical parameters are effectively sampled in the respective intervals. The maximum, minimum, mean values and also the variances of the moisture absorption content in the whole process are tracked and recorded. Furthermore, the stochastic distribution of moisture uptake content in the hybrid composites are also stimulated in the Finite Element model. Therefore, the uncertainty propagation is performed in both the moisture absorption process and saturation status for flax/glass fiber reinforced hybrid composites. (paper)