Analytical durability modeling and evaluation - complementary techniques for physical testing of automotive components

Abstract

As a result of the commercial pressure new methods of durability evaluation have to be explored, automotive suppliers are now being asked to develop new components and subsystems in shorter times and using fewer physical prototypes. The need for the verification of the existing methods for the durability assessment have been increasing and this turns out to be the only way to propose new computational models to validate the final product within these reduced time scales and resources. The paper reviews some of the computational aspects of fatigue damage analysis and life prediction, and a practical fatigue evaluation tool is presented to meet this challenge. The computational methodology based on the local strain approach is described in detail for the fatigue damage assessment of metallic components under general multiaxial fatigue loads. The application of the proposed methodology is illustrated with an industrial example; the numerical simulation of biaxial cornering tests of light-alloy wheels is conducted, and correlations between the cornering test cycles and predicted cycles using different damage models are provided and comparisons in terms test failure locations and estimated crack initiation sites are given. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.