Fatigue equivalent loads for visualization of multi-modal dynamic simulations

Transient dynamic simulations gain importance in the automotive industry and modern fatigue postprocessors are apt to evaluate the fatigue damage. However, additional insight into a structure’s behaviour may be obtained from observing the displacements. Displacement patterns are important for design engineers in order to improve the structure. With proportional static loads it is trivial to display and understand the displacements, but the displacements in dynamic simulations are often very complicated. This paper describes a novel method for visualising the transient displacements of mode-based analyses. Based on the modal displacements a new simple, yet fatigue equivalent, modal displacement is computed and visualized instead. Applications from commercial vehicles are used as examples.