Fatigue Analysis at VCC Using DesignLife

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 1 Security class: Public

Outline
Presentation VCC CAE Durability Body Rig Road loads Finite element model Automation DesignLife Flow example Differences from FE-fatigue Type of Fatigue Analyses Sheet metal Spot welds Arc welds Laser welds and laser braze Weld nuts Adhesive Concluding Remarks

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 2 Security class: Public

Presentation

VCC CAE Durability

Car body, exterior (doors, tailgate, hood), interior, chassis Road Load Data - Adams simulation Strength and fatigue analyses Fatigue loads may be Road loads Handling loads (e g open/close doors and closures) Fatigue analyses performed by use of DesignLife (earlier by use of FE-fatigue) Main finite element code for fatigue is Nastran, but Abaqus may also be used

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 3 Security class: Public

Body Rig
Overview Analysis represents rig test Vehicle is studied with Adams Time history loads are calculated at body attachment points

Predicted fatigue life

Analysis of sheets and joints

Nastran dynamic analysis

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 4 Security class: Public

Body Rig
Road loads Adams simulations Body and chassis components modelled as modal (flexible) bodies Large displacements, small deformations Linear materials Nonlinear bushings Tires modelled with FTire Virtual road

Fully analytical analysis Time history loads are calculated at body attachment points

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 5 Security class: Public

Body Rig
Finite element model Base model between 500 000 and 600 000 elements Mesh density 10 mm - mesh refinements for sheet analyses 4000 spot welds Arc welds - subframe attachments, isofix, etc Laser welds - one sided access Laser braze - for visible joints Weld Nuts Body trim: radiator, seats, doors, fuel tank, etc

135 modes covering up to 2.5 times highest frequency of interest Residual vectors added to improve results
sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 6 Security class: Public

Body Rig
Automation and postprocessing

Body rig analyses are automated and run in batch Input control and material data files created Eigenfrequencies and eigenvectors nastran SOL103 Element stress extraction nastran SOL103 Modal displacements (time histories) nastran SOL 112 DesignLife batch analysis Results combination

Fldesschema

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 7 Security class: Public

DesignLife
DesignLife flow example Towing eye Tailgate open/close Standard Designlife flow may be set up and saved

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 8 Security class: Public

DesignLife
Differences from FE-fatigue

Changed from FE-fatigue to DesignLife during 2009 The same fatigue theories are used DesignLife has been programmed in a different way DesignLife has better interface DesignLife has better possibilities to repeat analyses

Dlife vs FE-fatigue Y283

3

Life dlife/Life fe-fatigue (-)

0 1 10 100 Life fe-fatigue (%) 1000 10000

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 9 Security class: Public

Types of Fatigue Analyses

Overview
Sheet metal Joints DesignLife method: EN analysis SN analysis spot weld analysis seam weld analysis Used for: sheet metal weld nuts spot welds seam (arc) welds, laser welds, laser braze, spot welds

Sheets are refined and modelled as detailed as possible Joints are modelled according to special rules for each joint, corresponding to the correlated fatigue life curves implemented in DesignLife

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 10 Security class: Public

Types of Fatigue Analyses

Sheet metal Strain life (EN) method is used to cover both low cycle and high cycle fatigue Mesh is refined in area of interest (eg from 10 mm to 3 mm) Plasticity taken into account with Neuber correction in DesignLife Mean stress correction using Smith Watson Topper Generic data (Bumel and Seeger) is used for low strength materials Cut edges significantly reduce the fatigue life for high strength materials

Fatigue hot spots

Contact area not modeled and evaluated in CAE.

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 11 Security class: Public

Types of Fatigue Analyses

Spot welds Rupp's method Solid hexa element connected to shell elements with coupling elements (RBE3) Fast meshing and computationally effective Automatic joining implemented in Ansa Spot weld forces from finite element analysis are used in DesignLife The forces are transformed to give forces and moments in an equivalent bar element These forces and moments give radial stresses in the sheets and principal stresses in the bar at the interface of the sheets Torsional stresses in the sheets around the nugget are treated separately Picture from DesignLife Theory manual
sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 12 Security class: Public

Types of Fatigue Analyses

Spot welds continued A number of fatigue test on spot welded specimens have been performed to determine SN curves for spot welds Normally fatigue cracks occur in one of the outer sheets, not in the nugget or in the middle sheet, if there is one
loading direction

HP

HS

Results are very sensitive to the mesh, e g if the spot welds couple to a radius in a sheet or to other coupling elements such as other spot welds A possibility is to change to a spider spot weld model

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 13 Security class: Public

Types of Fatigue Analyses

Spot welds continued Spider method Master thesis by sgeir Rnarsson, 2007 The spot weld is modelled by a beam element and rigid elements (RBE2) The seam weld method in DesignLife is used Nastran CUBIC stresses from the shell elements are used, stresses in the nodes calculated from displacements and rotations in the nodes

There is support for spider joints in Ansa, but not as good as for hexa modelling Spider spot welds are the same irrespective of the mesh

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 14 Security class: Public

Types of Fatigue Analyses

Arc welds
Seam weld analysis in DesignLife Nastran CUBIC stresses are used, stresses in the nodes calculated from displacements and rotations in the nodes Sheets and welds are modelled using shell elements DesignLife interpolates between curves for bending and normal stress

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 15 Security class: Public

Types of Fatigue Analyses

Laser welds and laser braze
Laser welds - one sided access Laser braze for visible joints Seam weld analysis in DesignLife Same modelling as for arc welds, but different SN curves

Fatigue crack predicted in CAE

Fatigue crack found in physical test.

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 16 Security class: Public

Types of Fatigue Analyses

Weld nuts Weld nuts are attached to the body sheets by projection welding Stress-life (SN analysis) method used Clamped area modelled with rigid elements

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 17 Security class: Public

Types of Fatigue Analyses

Adhesive
Adhesive is often used together with spot welds The fatigue life of the spot welds will be longer, how much depends on the type of adhesive The effect is taken care of by different CAE targets for joints with and without adhesive A special in-house software may be used for pure adhesive joints

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 18 Security class: Public

Concluding Remarks
Today Predictions normally within a factor 4-5 from tested life CAE target is a balance to get long fatigue life, without adding unnecessary weight Future challenges Shorter time for analysis, fewer physical tests - only verification tests Find right balance between fast analyses and accuracy - depends on the stage of the project More efficient modelling - today different models for different analyses Larger models - finer mesh

New materials and new types of joints Weight - optimization

sa Sllstrm, Volvo Cars Corporation, 91520 CAE Durability 26 May 2010, page 19 Security class: Public