Industrial Framework for Identification and Verification of Hot Spots in Automotive Composite Structures

In this article, a framework for efficient strength analysis of large and complex automotive composite structures is presented. This article focuses on processes and methods that are compliant with common practice in the automotive industry. The proposed framework uses efficient shell models for identification of hot spots, automated remodelling and analysis of found hot spots with high-fidelity models and finally an automated way of post-processing the detailed models. The process is developed to allow verification of a large number of load cases in large models and still consider all potential failure modes. The process is focused on laminated composite primary structures. This article highlights the challenges and tools for setting up this framework.