Air Bind Effect on Door Slam Durability Performance

In the vehicle development process, the door slam durability assessment is of significant importance in the estimation of fatigue life for body closure system. So far, various exertions have been taken into consideration to better represent the door slam simulation for door durability performance. Nowadays, with computer aided engineering (CAE) being extensively implemented, simulation procedures are constantly being investigated in order to get precise outcomes as physical testing. In a real world scenario, the customer closes the door frequently against the sealed cabin which offers the cabin pressure to close. The cabin pressure acts in the opposite direction of door closing providing the damping effect and minimizes the overall damage to the structure. Currently, simulations are focused on determining the total energy required for closing the door by summing up the energy lost in the weather seal and latch. Often the energy required to overcome the air-bind effect is neglected in the analysis. This work addresses the air bind effect on structural durability performance of swing door, simulating customer usage over a 10-year vehicle lifecycle with using stress analysis in explicit solver and strain-life analysis in fatigue solver.