Durability Analysis of an Electric Wiper Linkage Subjected to Operation Cycles

A design procedure is developed to simulate the durability behavior of an electric wiper linkage mechanism subjected to operation cycles. The first stage determines the stress and strain levels that the linkage components are subjected to during the operation cycles. This requires the reaction loads at the joints of the wiper linkage. It is achieved by performing the mechanism dynamic analysis using multi-body dynamics software (MSC.ADMAS) together with a three dimensional transient finite element analysis (MSC.NASTRAN). Once the stress and strain of the wiper linkages are obtained during the operation cycle, the low cycle fatigue analysis is applied in the time domain. This analysis is based on strain-life curve, the Palmgreen-Miner’s rule, to compute the cumulative damage, the rain flow method for cycles counting, and the mean stress effect.

Using the methodology presented in this paper, good correlation with laboratory test can be achieved. The method can be applied in the initial design stages in order to reduce the number of tests and costs.