AngularJS: How to select an material-select item/option in selection

Here you are. Try it like in this demo fiddle by using a simple "cleanUp" function. While the value of your disabled option is empty you can achieve this by reset your ng-model as an empty string. So your disabled option becomes selected.

View

<div ng-controller="MyCtrl">
  <select class="" id="images" ng-model="image" material-select watch>
    <option value="" disabled selected>{{translation.fleet6}}</option>
    <option ng-repeat="item in fleetImage.data" 
            value="{{item.name}}" 
            data-icon="img/fleets/{{item.name}}" 
            class="left circle">{{item.name}}</option>
  </select>
  <button ng-click="cleanUp()">
    Cleanup
  </button>
</div>

AngularJS application

var myApp = angular.module('myApp', []);

myApp.controller('MyCtrl', function($scope) {

  $scope.image = '';
  $scope.translation = {
    fleet6: 'some value disabled'
  }
  $scope.fleetImage = {
    data: [{
      name: '1'
    },{
      name: '2'
    },{
      name: '3'
    },{
      name: '4'
    },{
      name: '5'
    }
  ]}

  $scope.cleanUp = function () {
    $scope.image = '';
  }
});