FE-Fatigue. Designing for Fatigue Strength during Virtual Product Development

Transcription

1 FE-Fatigue Designing for Fatigue Strength during Virtual Product Development

2 Need to minimize the risk of product failure and get better, lighter, products to market faster than now? Imagine That a virtual design analysis tool could help you do just that! Imagine That you could rapidly predict fatigue hotspots and the lifetime of your product...that you could use your existing design/cae environment and tools...that you could quickly compare and rank design options for better durability...that you could simulate realistic loading situations using real-life measurements in the time or frequency domains, synthesized loads, or hybrid combinations of them...that you could incorporate multiaxial loadings, welds, and temperature effects into the model - even integrate with MSC.ADAMS for systems-level analysis...that you could access our database of material fatigue properties, while our Materials Test Laboratory can also characterize new materials for you...that the design could be validated and refined long before sign-off to physical build Imagine? Leading manufacturers have used FE-Fatigue to do just this for years!

3 FE-Fatigue Everything for day-to-day use... Seamless Model and Data I/O FE-Fatigue seamlessly reads the model and results from most leading FE codes including NASTRAN, ABAQUS and ANSYS and writes the fatigue results to most popular postprocessors, such as MSC.PATRAN, I-DEAS, MEDINA, Hypermesh... Many third party products provide a direct interface to FE-Fatigue, such as Hypermesh, MSC.ADAMS Durability and MEDINA. Measured or synthesized multichannel load data is easily imported from packages compatible with ncode or RPC formats; there is no limit to the time history length. Material matters While it s fairly easy to find basic linear elastic properties for most materials, it s more difficult to find fatigue-related data. FE-Fatigue includes a database of around 200 standard material fatigue properties, and allows users to easily add their own data. What-if scenarios can be quickly performed to assess the effect of changing the material or surface finish. Strain-Life and Stress-Life methods Data can be visualized in the time, frequency or rainflow count domains. Both the Strain life and Stress life methods are supported. Stresslife (SN) is traditionally used for low-level loading acting over an extended period. Strain-life (EN) generally estimates the time to crack initiation, and is more appropriate when some load events could give rise to significant plasticity. Multiple SN curves can be used during the analysis and multiaxial assessment and basic critical plane tools are provided to account for simple non-proportional load cases. Temperature compensation Fatigue properties of materials are invariably a function of temperature, so FE-Fatigue provides a means to take this into account. It allows interpolation between multiple strainor stress-life curves which allows the effect of temperature distribution in a component to be considered. A basic weld analysis Fatigue hotspots can be clearly seen. The standard FE-Fatigue product includes a weld analysis capability. Based on an SN approach, you provide your own curve(s) if known, or simply use those from an engineering standard. A basic weld analysis comes as standard.

4 FE-Fatigue Options...and even more for special applications Advanced Multiaxial The standard package can handle straightforward multiaxial loads, but when solving for the most awkward loading conditions especially when the multiaxial stresses are constantly changing direction or phase this module has everything an expert needs... Multiaxial strain-life approaches inc multiaxial plasticity and notch correction A variety of critical plane analyses Multiaxial safety factor approaches using Dang Van and McDiarmid methods Vibration Fatigue When a component is subject to random loadings, or when the loading scenario is most easily described in the frequency domain, this module is most suitable. It allows loadings and responses to be described as PSDs, and can efficiently take into account excitation of resonances. Dirlik method allows estimation of rainflow distribution and hence fatigue life from a stress PSD Thin Panel Weld Analysis A focussed solution, developed in conjuction with industry and research institutes, for thin sheet structures that incorporate multiple spot and seam welds. Tuned to thin sheet applications such as body panels Advanced spot and seam weld methods Automated analysis procedures Utilities Providing more in-depth analysis capability than just the visualization features of the standard package, you can process, manipulate and analyze the raw data in every way imaginable... Signal processing (math, filtering...) Time history editing Curve fitting and Weibull analysis Simulation/pre-qualification of shaker table tests Thin panel spot weld technology validated by many truck and auto makers highlights weaker areas.

5 FE-Fatigue The integrated tool for Virtual Product Fatigue Engineering By enabling designers to accurately identify fatigue hotspots and predict time to failure in a given loading environment, FE-Fatigue will provide a way to systematically minimize the weight of your product while still meeting durability targets. You ll eliminate the costs of product over-design and get better, more profitable products to market. You ll dramatically save time by reducing the need for design iterations based on expensive physical prototype testing. And, above all, you ll minimize the risk of costly recalls or redesigns. A natural extension of your current CAE tools, FE-Fatigue is easily incorporated into your existing engineering process. From batch automation, to report generation, to adding custom menus FE-Fatigue will streamline your current process for improved productivity and lower internal costs. FE-Fatigue comes out of the box with sensible default settings for those beginning with fatigue analysis, who just need to find out where and when their product might fail, and is scalable to the most advanced users faced with multiaxial loads, welds, random vibrations and temperature effects who need to calculate crack initiation, crack growth and associated safety factors Supported by the durability company FE-Fatigue is developed by ncode, a company dedicated to just two things durability engineering and your success. We provide basic and advanced training courses, consulting and materials testing services, and the most advanced fatigue measurement and prediction products on the market today. Features you want Works with most FE codes and post-processors Dynamic stresses and strains calculated using linear static or modal superposition, or from direct transient or non-linear time step analyses. Fatigue analysis from PSDs for random vibration problems Multiaxial assessment and analysis Measured or synthetic load histories Local strain and stress-life approaches Elevated temperature fatigue analysis Spot and seam welds, inc. thin-sheet structures Benefits you need Compare and evaluate design alternatives virtually Optimize for durability before physical prototype build Reduced weight for same (or better) performance Get better products to market faster Better understanding of product performance Reduced warranty costs Fact ncode fatigue technology is also embedded in products from vendors such as MSC.Software

6 Studio and FE-Display Advanced reporting tools Studio The job s not done till the paperwork s done - and with potentially hundreds of time histories to process it s a critical phase. FE-Fatigue builds in our Studio reporting module to let you automate the whole process. automates the reporting of huge multichannel datasets axis labeling, highlighting of zones above/below threshold... runs in batch mode to user defined template(s) FE-Display (Option) Most finite element post-processors are good at creating contour plots of numerical values such as stress, but they re usually not up to the job when it comes to fatigue analysis results. Fatigue result sets can include discrete conditions such as static failure or beyond cutoff where no numeric value is appropriate they are also best shown using a log color map which few display tools can handle. The Studio FE Display option directly addresses this need. Many unique features make it much easier to interpret the data and create the required plots. Contour plot scales automatically reverse depending on whether Life or Damage is being plotted; colored three-dimensional plot markers are provided for visualizing both spot weld and seam weld fatigue results. Make stunning reports in minutes! ncode reserves the right to modify product specifications without notice. The features described in this document are based on FE-Fatigue Release 6.0 or higher. For further details please refer to specification sheets. ncode has sales and support offices throughout the world. It has OEM sales agreements with partner companies in the CAE industry. ncode International. FE-Fatigue is a trademark of ncode, a wholly owned subsidiary of AEA Technology plc. All other trademarks acknowledged. Printed on chlorine-free paper, January 2005