Durability Analysis of Full Automotive Body Structures

Durability problems in the automotive body structures due to road loads, need to be predicted early in the design process, in order to reduce the design, engineering, manufacturing, tooling and prototype costs and timing. This paper describes a procedure which can be used for identifying potential durability problem areas in an automotive body structure and predict the fatigue life of the critical areas due to road loads. A fully trimmed body model and loads generated from ADAMS^** dynamic code were used for the analysis. Measured loads at the suspension attachment areas were used to analyze the local body structure. The peak stress levels of the various critical areas along with their fatigue life for the load-time history were obtained and displayed for easy visualization.