Automotive door latches play a crucial role in occupant safety and user
experience. The mechanisms utilized as latching systems in automotive doors are
designed to hold the doors in a closed position relative to the body of a
vehicle and can be grouped into three major categories: hood/frunk latches, lift
gate latches, and side door latches. These mechanical systems vary in design
across vehicle models, but all must withstand harsh environmental conditions,
including water intrusion. Therefore, their requirements and validations include
rigorous testing that ensures the continued functionality of the device after
being subjected to extreme environmental conditions, such as cold, heat, and
humidity. Rainfall in winter months leads to ice storms where water freezes
instantly upon contact with cold surfaces, leading to ice formation on
structures. In some cases, water can penetrate latch systems, freezing the latch
systems with the risk of potentially making them inoperable. Currently,
validation methods require physical parts for testing, meaning that to assess
the risks, it is necessary to advance the development of the product to its
final stages to have a prototype that adequately represents the design intention
of the automotive latch. This study employs smoothed particle hydrodynamics
(SPH), a mesh-free numerical method well suited for analyzing complex fluid
behaviors. By leveraging Simcenter Nanofluid, an SPH-based simulation tool
accelerated by graphics processing unit (GPU) computing, we achieve
high-fidelity fluid simulations with reduced computational time, enabling rapid
iteration during design cycles. This paper presents a comparative analysis of
physical water spray tests and virtual simulations conducted using Simcenter
Nanofluid. Correlating simulation outcomes with test data validates the model’s
accuracy. Design changes informed by this insight help the development cycle by
identifying opportunities to mitigate water ingress and enhance system
robustness.