	Home \| Login \| Language \| Contact us \| Offices \| Search

Home » Solutions overview » 3D Virtual Prototype Simulation » Durability » Durability Introduction » Durability Component-level Process

Delivering Technology Breakthroughs on Component Level

Delivering Technology Breakthroughs on Component Level

Efficient seam and spot weld assessments

Hundreds of spot welds and long runs of seam welds may be part of sheet structures, as used in vehicle body and suspension systems. For spot welds, LMS Virtual.Lab supports the Rupp/LBF approach, CDH and a special JSAE model. LMS Virtual.Lab Durability automates the durability assessment of seam welds and spares engineers the trouble of tediously adapting the FE-mesh according to seam weld meshing guidelines. All that needs to be done is defining manufacturing details of the welded zone. LMS Virtual.Lab identifies the local stress concentrations, based on all possible combinations of (local) load conditions of the welded detail.

Sheet connections are automatically detected and classified (element groups or predefined groups)
Connection types are automatically classified (e.g. butt welds, overlap joints, T-joints)

Outstanding accuracy through in-depth investigations

Assessing the effects of loads can be challenging, in particular when they consist of multiple independent inputs. Such forces generate local multiaxial stress states. Outstanding accuracy is achieved by treating these cases based on the critical plane approach, which accounts for the anisotropy caused by microscopically small cracks.

Fatigue-life solver fit for rigid and flexible bodies

While components such as knuckles are never excited close to their natural frequencies, other parts such as suspension subframes, truck chassis, or exhaust systems may be. To accurately and efficiently tackle any situation, the solver of LMS Virtual.Lab Durability supports different approaches for predicting stresses, based on quasi-static, inertial relief and on modal superposition techniques.

Top analysis speed with smart data reductions

To facilitate the computation of real-life industrial size models, LMS Virtual.Lab Durability intelligently reduces the amount of data to be handled with a fully automatic process, through node elimination and RP filtering. No need to guess where the critical locations might be – all locations are found automatically. The analysis of a complex car body model, with hundreds of spot and seam welds and over 350,000 elements, is completed in just a few hours!

Insights on damage impact of individual loads

Specific capabilities that analyze local load contributions enable durability engineers to easily derive those design modifications that minimize the damage at hot spots. The assessment is based on changes in maximum stress or damage when leaving out one of the loads.