software

Residual stresses may be introduced into plastic parts produced by the injection molding process. As a result, the part may warp or experience a reduction in strength. The design of an injection molded product can be improved if the effect of residual stresses on the final shape and performance of the product are predicted accurately. Abaqus and Moldflow can be used for this purpose. The residual stresses generated by the solidifi-cation of the plastic material are computed by Moldflow and transferred to Abaqus using the Abaqus Interface for Moldflow.

A key factor in the design of bottles and packaging con-tainers is performance during conveying. The ability of a bottle to remain standing while traveling through a con-veying plant for production, cleaning, filling, packaging, etc. allows that plant to be automated. If bottles fall or jam during conveying then human intervention is required to correct the situation. Finite element analysis can be used to verify new bottle designs and ensure that changes to current designs will not cause a reduction in conveying performance.

Hot rolling is a basic metal forming technique that is used to transform preformed shapes into final products or forms that are suitable for further processing. The process typically involves passing heated stock pieces through multiple sets of forming rolls until the desired cross-sectional shape is achieved. The important aspects of this manufacturing operation are the elongation and spread of the material during the rolling process.

Composite structures often have a higher capacity for ab-sorbing energy than their metal counterparts. The crush-ing behavior of composite materials is complex, and the inclusion of composite components in vehicles for crash protection can necessitate expensive experimental test-ing. The ability to computationally simulate the crushing response of composite structures can significantly shorten the product development cycle and reduce cost in the aerospace, automotive, and railway industries.

The uniform pressure method (UPM) approach to simulat-ing airbag deployment has been widely used in the auto-mobile safety industry. The defining assumption of UPM, specifically that pressure in the airbag is spatially uniform during inflation, makes the approach most applicable for „in-position‟ (IP) analyses with fully inflated airbags. In contrast, an analysis may be characterized as „out-of-position‟ (OoP) if the occupant interacts with the airbag before it is fully deployed.

In a traditional automobile noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) analysis, stationary tires are defined and subjected to vertical dynamic loading. The actual operating condi-tions of a tire involve rolling however, and the vibration characteristics of rolling tires are considerably different from those of stationary tires. Abaqus offers a methodology to include the pre-loading and gyroscopic effects of rolling tires in a forced response dynamic analysis of the moving vehicle.

In the automobile industry, kinematics and compliance (K&C) testing is used to evaluate the ride and handling performance of an automobile. The traditional approach to numerical simulation of K&C testing involves the use of multi-body dynamics software, which simplifies the phys-ics by introducing rigid body assumptions. In this Technology Brief, a new methodology for K&C simulation is demonstrated using Abaqus/Standard.

Accurate simulation of an anti-lock brake system (ABS) requires detailed modeling of separate subsystems in dif-ferent physical domains. Creating refined models of the brake, wheel, and control components with a single analy-sis tool is difficult, if not impossible. The strategy of co-simulation can be adopted to meet this challenge; differ-ent simulation tools can be used simultaneously to create multi-disciplinary and multi-domain coupling. In this Technology Brief, a co-simulation approach using Abaqus and Dymola is used to achieve a realistic system-level simulation of an ABS.

The Biofidelic Rear Impact Dummy (BioRID-II) hardware model has been developed to measure automotive seat and head restraint system performance in low-speed rear end crashes. It has also been used to further the under-standing of whiplash injuries. This technology brief fo-cuses on the Abaqus BioRID-II finite element model, which has been developed in cooperation with the Ger-man Association for Research in Automobile Technology FAT. The capabilities of the model will be described, and a comparison with experimental data is shown.

Tires are the only load transfer mechanism between a vehicle’s suspension and the road. Consequently, tire vibration has a significant impact on ride quality and vehicle interior noise.