Automobile manufacturers introduce new materials and components to support efforts to reduce weight, increase efficiency and develop “greener” products. Engineers historically have had to manufacture prototype components and vehicles to test these new materials, a time-consuming, inefficient and expensive process.
Analyzing virtual prototypes solves this problem. Engineers can evaluate and analyze new materials more easily and efficiently with the latest release of the Virtual Performance Solution (VPS) virtual prototyping software recently introduced by ESI Group. The VPS software is an enhanced virtual prototyping tool developed from the PAM-CRASH software, a crash simulator designed to evaluate the performance of automotive materials and components in a vehicular crash. The VPS software extends this capability to include structural analysis under normal driving conditions, evaluation of composite materials and noise analysis.
Engineers can build accurate vehicle models and then analyze, test and evaluate these models to simulate behavior in real-world driving conditions. This release of the software offers new functionality, new composite and strength models and extended analysis capability:
- New functionality—Engineers can better analyze the propagation of ruptures after impact on virtual models with the enhanced dynamic remeshing functionality. The graphical tools enable detailed investigation of rupture behavior to show exactly what happens to the material and components as the rupture propagates following an impact.
- New composite and strength models—Engineers can predict the rupture behavior and energy absorption capacity of composite parts using the new composite crash and strength models. Accuracy is significantly increased by incorporating manufacturing effects—such as fiber orientation and surface texture resulting from the composite forming manufacturing process—in the analysis.
- Extended noise vibration and harshness analysis—Engineers can predict noise level and radiation with a combination of finite element and boundary element methods. The single-core model used for the complete vehicle simplifies setting the correct preliminary conditions to improve prediction accuracy for structural response. The single-core model also incorporates frequency dependency and manufacturing experience, for both existing materials with widely understood properties as well as innovative and advanced materials.
For more information, visit the ESI Group website.