The Future of Fatigue and Durability Analysis

AAM has been providing mechanical drivelines to automotive customers for more than 25 years. As the automobile transitions to electrification, so too must the driveline. AAM has developed a suite of innovative, lightweight, compact and cost-optimized electric drive units and electric beam axles to meet the growing global technology demand as electric vehicles continue to expand over the next decade. Engineering simulation, optimization and validation tools were significant enablers to increase the validation confidence and reduce the time to market for these new products.

General discourse as it pertains to sustainability is often centered around topics such as global warming or carbon footprint. However, product design and lifecycle considerations can and should be looked at as key facilitators of sustainability. From generating lightweight designs to the selection of material, to parts reusability and durability, the product life cycle from concept to end-of-life, and the actions taken therein, form the basis of being sustainable. Join us and our panelists as we discuss the role simulation plays in driving the selection of efficient and sustainable materials, evaluating control strategies to avoid critical operating conditions that lead to excessive aging of batteries, and minimizing the number of physical tests and prototypes while ensuring durability considerations are met.

The push for lighter weight products continues and with it the challenge increases for engineers to retain the required strength and durability. Fatigue calculations are vital to evaluate where mass reduction can be achieved without sacrificing durability. This webinar will discuss the fatigue calculation methods relevant to maintaining durability in today's advanced lightweight structures.

Truck dynamics, control system, thermal, and fatigue analyses all need to be completed when designing a new truck design. Using Altair HyperWorks, Hitachi achieves a 10% weight reduction in the main frame and rigid body, while maintaining product quality.

Frequency Domain Fatigue Analysis with nCode DesignLife

Welding is a commonly used technique in different industries to join two metal parts. Parts that are welded, tend to fatigue in the welded regions, even in a well-designed structure. Therefore, it is necessary to make a fatigue assessment of the welded joints. The fatigue assessment of welded parts should be highly prioritized to ensure a good evaluation of the durability of the weld structure. There are different types of approaches that can be used to evaluate the fatigue life of welds. This presentation illustrates how different welding methods such as spot welds or seam welds are considered in nCode DesignLife software which can be used within the Altair partnership program. This webinar deals with Shell/Solids and Spot welds modeled with nCode DesignLife. It starts with the theoretical approaches, goes on with the modeling techniques and shows the results in DesignLife.

Presentation by Amaury Chabod, Senior Application Engineer at HBM Prensica.

HyperWorks and the Altair Partner Alliance Streamline Testing of Truck Components at IVECO Australia

To support the use of simulation tools in this endeavor, ABB in Spain enlisted the help of Altair ProductDesign's regional team, thanks to the company's experience in utilizing simulation tools to solve engineering challenges in the robotics industry. The project centered on improving the fatigue performance of a Twin Robot Xbar (TRX), one of ABB’s robotic part transfer systems that moves components between manufacturing stations.

This webinar covers how advanced optimization techniques helped FCA Engineering India Pvt. explore the lightweight component design of a vehicle suspension system. For this purpose, the development process of a track bar bracket will be shown, highlighting how a lightweight and durable component design was achieved.

Bringing design optimization, fatigue analysis, casting, and 3D printing together addresses the challenges of lightweight design and enables the creation of an innovative design and manufacturing process that enhances performance and efficiency.

Presentation introducing a few of the top use cases for the durability software, nCode DesignLife.

3D printing is gripping the engineering community with large mass appeal. With a confluence of many factors like aggressive marketing, advancements in manufacturing processes, willingness and bold initiatives to reduce weight, the adoption phase has clearly crossed the chasm from early adopters to an early majority.

Fatigue life prediction of structures whose natural frequencies lie near the frequencies of the input loading requires the stress results from dynamic analyses. These analyses can be performed in either the time or the frequency domains depending on the nature or the loading. This presentation will outline the approaches available for fatigue life prediction using Altair OptiStruct and APA product, nCode DesignLife for both time and frequency based dynamic analyses. The strengths, weaknesses and assumptions of each approach will be presented, along with typical applications enabling the user to select the proper technique for their particular use case.

Mr. Chris Lewis, Global Partner Manager at HBM-nCode, discusses durability and fatigue software, DesignLife, available through the Altair Partner Alliance.

Introductory video to DesignLife, durability and fatigue analysis software by HBM-nCode.

Case study on Whirlpool India’s usage of the Altair Partner Alliance

Success story on NetShape India's usage of the Altair Partner Alliance to scale-up capabilities while cutting software cost.

Dana engineers increased their productivity and efficiency by gaining access to the APA suite of applications.

As challenges to the auto industry became more complex, Multimatic needed to adopt new software tools to offer a broader range of component and system analyses. By accessing the APA suite of software, they were able to expand their capabilities and complete simulation work in a faster and more complete fashion, thus helping customers mitigate risk in their system designs.