<s>
The	O
fuzzy	B-General_Concept
finite	I-General_Concept
element	I-General_Concept
method	I-General_Concept
combines	O
the	O
well-established	O
finite	B-Application
element	I-Application
method	I-Application
with	O
the	O
concept	O
of	O
fuzzy	O
numbers	O
,	O
the	O
latter	O
being	O
a	O
special	O
case	O
of	O
a	O
fuzzy	O
set	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
in	O
the	O
finite	B-Application
element	I-Application
analysis	I-Application
.	O
</s>
<s>
One	O
way	O
to	O
establish	O
a	O
fuzzy	B-General_Concept
finite	I-General_Concept
element	I-General_Concept
(	O
FE	O
)	O
analysis	O
is	O
to	O
use	O
existing	O
FE	O
software	O
(	O
in-house	O
or	O
commercial	O
)	O
as	O
an	O
inner-level	O
module	O
to	O
compute	O
a	O
deterministic	O
result	O
,	O
and	O
to	O
add	O
an	O
outer-level	O
loop	O
to	O
handle	O
the	O
fuzziness	O
(	O
uncertainty	O
)	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
If	O
the	O
inner-level	O
deterministic	O
module	O
produces	O
monotonic	O
behavior	O
with	O
respect	O
to	O
the	O
input	O
variables	O
,	O
then	O
the	O
outer-level	O
optimization	O
problem	O
is	O
greatly	O
simplified	O
,	O
since	O
in	O
this	O
case	O
the	O
extrema	O
will	O
be	O
located	O
at	O
the	O
vertices	O
of	O
the	O
domain	B-Algorithm
.	O
</s>
