The Stone Impact Test Study with Impact Mechanics and FEA Analysis

Currently in automotive industrial, the emphasis on developing a better heat exchanger for vehicle thermal management is not only to address its functional performance but also its durability levels. One of the requirements for the latter is to test the heat exchanger in a simulated stone impact bench test with specified impact energy criteria. Due to various complex influence factors of this test, there is no existing simplified and physical-based relationship for heat exchanger design engineers to apply.

With above considerations in mind and based on impact mechanical principles, impact heads configurations and heat exchangers geometrical details, this paper is proposing and developing a simplified impact mechanical models, where physical reasoned influence design factors can be presented and analyzed. Furthermore, these related cases will be also simulated by impact mechanical finite element analysis (FEA) software and by proposed simplified models with comparisons and discussions given in later section of this paper.