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SimDesigner Fatigue SFA SimDesigner Fatigue for CATIA V5 Fatigue Analysis for the Analyst, Part 2

By Adarsh Pun, Mark Bacchetti and Antoine Reymond, MSC.Software Corporation

MSC.Software offers a fully-embedded fatigue analysis solution for CATIA V5 called SimDesigner Fatigue (SFA). SFA is an easy-to-use, integrated solution for designengineers and analysts who want the advantage of enhanced collaboration in the CATIA V5 environment. Part 1 of this article describes how a design-engineer can utilize SimDesigner Fatigue during the early stages of product design. SFA essentially provides a three-step, initial fatigue solution, where all of the default (intelligent) fatigue analysis parameters are set for a first-run, robust solution. For deeper fatigue investigations or advanced users, all of the fatigue analysis parameters can be manipulated for further examination of the part.

Figure 1: SimDesigner Fatigue process flow.

Part 2 will examine the final stages of product development where the design-engineer and analyst need to work together to optimize the part or product assembly and perform some additional fatigue investigation of the design. SimDesigner Fatigues

2/7 embedded CATIA V5 user interface creates an ideal working environment for this stage in the process when design-engineers, analysts, and managers demand flexibility, collaboration, and productivity. Continuing from Part 1, the design-engineer performed a simple durability analysis on an ATV lower control arm using most of the intelligent solution defaults available in SimDesigner Fatigue. See figure 1. While this analysis identifies the critical hot spots in the structure, an analyst may now want to utilize this analysis to perform a comprehensive durability examination using the advanced loading and solver features of SFA. The integrated solution (CATIA V5 and SFA) allows the analyst to perform a durability assessment without transferring any data to an external software package. SimDesigner Fatigue provides the analyst with powerful features that are needed to perform durability assessments. The analyst can perform a comprehensive fatigue analysis by using the following six steps:
1. 2. 3. 4. Create Critical Groups. Create a Fatigue Material. Insert a Fatigue Case. Create or import load time histories for multi channel loading. 5. Select Solution Parameters. 6. Compute and review computed life.

After completing this process, the design-engineer or analyst can use SimDesigners generative capabilities to redesign areas that have been identified with potential failure modes. Let us take a closer look at these six steps to perform advanced fatigue analysis with respect to the lower control arm model above. 1. Create Critical Fatigue Groups The user has an option to customize groups for a fatigue analysis. See figure 2. By default, all elements and nodes are contained in the Default Group.1. However, if the model is large, it can be sub-divided into groups or grouped by Materials, as indicated in the form below. In this case, the analyst chooses to perform a fatigue analysis on 25% of the highest stressed nodes from the linear static solution.

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Figure 2: Creating a group for critical areas.

2. Create a Fatigue Material

Right click on the Isotropic Material.1 and select Fatigue Material. See figure 3. A dialog box is displayed to allow the User to create fatigue materials data using either the basic or the advanced material properties. For advanced properties, the analyst is required to enter the fatigue material parameters (slopes, exponents, etc). The data can either be entered on the form or imported from an existing *.mat file.

Figure 3: Creating a Fatigue Material.

3. Insert Fatigue Case Insert a SD Fatigue Case and select a SimDesigner Linear Static Case Solution. The fatigue analysis will use the stress results associated with the Linear Static Case for performing a Fatigue analysis at the default element centroid location. The user has the option of changing the results location to nodal or element nodal. In figure 4 below, the nodal results location has been chosen.

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Figure 4: Referencing a linear static analysis to a Fatigue Case.

4. Create Multi-Channel Loading Events SimDesigner Fatigue has two default time histories available: fully reversed constant amplitude and unit (0-1-0). The user can override the default time histories by defining a load time history for each fatigue channel. The default or user created load time histories are then used to create fatigue events, which are the time histories with user defined scale and offset factors applied to them. See figure 5.

Figure 5: Creating events based on realistic time histories.

Once the events have been created, the user can manage the events by specifying if they are to be concatenated or superimposed at all analysis locations. In figure 6 below, superposition of three events is shown. The events can be further modified with

5/7 a normalizing load, scale factor, and an offset, that provides the analyst more flexibility in achieving the correct loading on the model.
Figure 6: Managing multiple events in SimDesigner Fatigue.

5. Manage Solution Parameters Selecting the Advanced check box allows the user access to several solver solution parameters, such as mean stress, biaxiality corrections, and factor of safety calculations. The default values will be acceptable for most fatigue analyses. The user is also provided with an opportunity to change the analysis results location (element centroid, element nodes, or nodes) that was selected when inserting the fatigue case. The layer (top, middle, and bottom) position for shell results may also be selected from this form. If the Advanced check box is not selected, no additional user input is required on this form (see figure 7). The analysis properties also have options for group assignments. Here, the user can manage the groups created from step one. See figure 7. Each group can be modified with different surface conditions, materials, and stresses.

Figure 7: Fatigue solution parameters and group assignments.

6/7 6. Compute and Review Computed Life Once the analysis has completed, the user can assess the fatigue by selecting the SimDesigner Fatigue Case Solution. See figure 8.

Figure 8: SimDesigner Fatigue Computation Process.

SimDesigner Fatigue offers a complete set of postprocessing plots for the analyst. Plots include Log Life, Damage, Confidence, and Angle Spread. Figure 9 shows the results Image Generation selection menu.

Figure 9: Image Generation.

7/7 The analyst can now assess the lower control arms durability and make recommendations for an improved design. See figure 10. The analyst or designengineer can modify the part in the CATIA V5 Part Design workbench and immediately compute for a new solution.

Figure 10: Design Iteration with SimDesigner Fatigue.

SimDesigner Fatigues integrated solution offers the flexibility needed by the designengineers and analysts during the design iteration process. By using SimDesigner for CATIA V5, the analyst has the option to quickly iterate the geometry. Likewise, the design-engineer can capture the analysts durability process in the final design iterations. This flexibility allows design-engineers and analysts to have improved collaboration that enhances development productivity. For more information on SimDesigner Fatigue and SimDesigner for CATIA V5, please visit the following websites: SimDesigner Homepage http://simdesigner.mscsoftware.com SimDesigner Fatigue http://www.mscsoftware.com/products/products_detail.cfm?PI=627