Methodology to Obtain the Operation Reaction Loads in Automotive Fuel Filler Door

During the development phase of any product, it is crucial to ensure functionality and durability throughout their whole lifecycle. Physical tests have been traditionally used as the main tool to evaluate the durability of a product, especially in the automotive industry. And the evolution of computational methods combined with the Engineering Fundamentals allowed Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) simulations to predict failures in considering different conditions without building a prototype to perform a test. The use of virtual product validation using CAE simulations leads to product design flexibility on early development phase and both development costs and time reduction. This paper presents a methodology for computing the operation reaction loads in an automotive fuel filler door, which is an input needed to virtually validate the subsystem in terms of durability. The methodology is based on rigid body motion assumptions and the result shows good accuracy when comparing the displacement of physical model and virtual model using the proposed methodology. Also, a substantial time reduction when compared with traditional component development.