Advanced Analysis of Vehicles' Components using the BE Method

A previous paper presented by the author at the 5th International (8) Conference on Vehicle Structural Mechanics dealt with the elastostatics analysis of automotive structures. That work helped to establish BEM as an efficient alternative to FEM analysis for automotive components design.

The present paper demonstrates some of the new capabilities available in BEM codes which are essential for CAD applications and the eventual integration of the technique within the CIH process. In addition, the paper deals with the application of new theoretical developments which allow the extension of the method to time dependent problems, i.e. time dependent thermal and elastodynamics analysis. These are important applications in vehicle components but their efficient and accurate BEM solution was not possible until very recently.

The paper also presents some quality and reliability tests carried out comparing BEM with FEM and other solutions. They tend to confirm the overall efficiency of the BEM.