Ageing Simulation for Elastomers
The October 2020 release of Endurica’s durability simulation software features a new capability to define ageing behavior for a material, and to calculate the effects of heat exposure history on part durability.
“This is a feature that was developed and validated over the last few years in partnership with one of our Tier 1 automotive OEM users,”
notes company founder and president Dr. Will Mars.
“It has been used extensively for an application where long-term exposure to high temperatures was leading to early part failures.”
The new ageing feature lets users define tabular master curves that define the evolution of key material properties such as stiffness, critical tearing energy, and intrinsic strength (ie fatigue threshold). The simulation uses the Arrhenius law to calculate relative ageing rate as a function of temperature, and it then integrates to find equivalent exposure time for each element in the finite element model. The simulation captures time-dependent changes in the fatigue crack growth rate law. It can also be coupled to a finite element solver to update stress and strain fields during the solution. Two new outputs for each element are included with the ageing feature: age-equivalent time, and age-influenced stiffness. As always, the fatigue life distribution can also be output to determine the shortest-lived element.
The new release also includes a file encryption feature that allows users to share all or part of the simulation input without giving away details like material properties or specific load cases. It also includes a binary-formatted input file that can speed up read/write time by a factor of 8, as well as improvements to the EIE interpolation engine.
