A Comprehensive Study of Door Slam

As part of an ongoing technical collaboration between Ford and Rouge Steel Company, a comprehensive study of door slam event was undertaken. The experimental phase of the project involved measurements of accelerations at eight locations on the outer panel and strains on six locations of the inner panel. Although slam tests were conducted with window up and window down, results of only one test is presented in this paper. The CAE phase of the project involved the development of suitable “math” model of the door assembly and analysis methodology to capture the dynamics of the event. The predictability of the CAE method is examined through detailed comparison of accelerations and strains. While excellent agreement between CAE and test results of accelerations on the outer panel is obtained, the analysis predicts higher strains on the inner panel than the test. In addition, the tendency of outer panel to elastically buckle is examined. The implications of the buckling of the outer panel are discussed. The effects of thickness distribution and plastic strains introduced on the inner and outer panels due to forming are studied. The results show that the strains on the inner panel can be significantly influenced when forming effects are accounted for. The effect of forming on the accelerations of the outer panel can be less intuitive. This is possibly due to the buckling of the outer panel during the slam event.