Rubber Industry | Endurica LLC

What is the Price of Standing Still?

February 15, 2023February 15, 2023 by Pauline Glaza

What if we don't change at all and something magical just happens? Technical equation for entropy

“We have always done it this way.” No longer simply a hated phrase, this statement is a warning of impending disaster. Entropy – the disorder that happens when energy disperses and systems simply fall into chaos – happens when things do not change. But it’s a slow process you don’t see day-to-day. Continuing with traditional “build and break” development methods instead of embracing CAE and simulation has many long-term risks but it will only be after stagnating for some time that rubber parts manufacturing firms, and even the entire rubber industry, will realize the pitfalls:

Talent Loss
People are the key to it all and we start here since intelligent, hard-working, productive people are the fundamental reason any business succeeds. When the best and brightest employees leave a company, the fundamental reasons often include the lack of opportunity, learning, and career development. When not allowed to work with emerging technologies and are no longer challenged to grow, top performers find new opportunities taking not only raw potential but also institutional memory with them. And if they don’t see the industry as a viable long-term option, switching companies can also mean leaving the sector completely.

Warranty Issues/Payouts
Liability issues arise when product usage, applications and environments bring risks that may not have been factored in to the original designs and/or production methods. Traditional testing methods cannot be used to investigate “what if?” scenarios the way CAE and simulation can. Recalls and litigation can be significantly more costly than new technology implementations.

Lost Opportunity Costs
While harder to measure than fixed and variable business costs, there is an expense to every choice known as opportunity cost. Refusing to enter a new business sector may result in significant loss of revenue and profit. Taking on a big client project may strain production capabilities. “Standing still” eliminates those risks, but at what potential gain? As the rubber industry wrestles to “go green” we are all weighing and measuring the opportunity costs involved. The real lost opportunity is in refusing to embrace a fundamentally better design platform.

Incompatibility or Obsolescence
At some point, everything being produced right now will become obsolete. Even if you produce the best “widgets” anywhere, the environment around that “widget” will change and will no longer be needed in its current form. The rubber industry standard procedure of building a product then breaking it in physical testing to determine the next design rendition is incompatible with the time available for new product development. It just does not work anymore.

How quickly your business can adapt to or anticipate change is a key factor in continued success. The reasons companies do not make continued progress often include:

Change is expensive
Investments in training, new production systems, updated software and computers add up, but these numbers are not insurmountable when factored against the ongoing and often increasing costs of waste, repairs and downtime associated with outdated systems and equipment.

Learning new technology is time-consuming
Remember when you were thinking about going to college and four (6-8-10) years seemed like FOREVER? What was your ROI? What will it be now? Time invested in learning reaps many rewards beyond the subject at hand and often provides renewed overall energy.

The status quo works
For today, yes. For a brighter future for you company and the industry, NO. Companies that don’t evolve face certain death. Day-to-day operations may appear stable, but firms who do not keep up with technology do not stay in business. Covid forced many to embrace technology in new ways and those firms continuing to provide progressive working arrangements are gathering more than their fair share of the best and brightest talent. Enabling people to work beyond traditional geographic boundaries requires accountability and processes for measuring valued contributions rather than simply time at a desk. Firms embracing CAE and simulation technologies have realized this and are at the top of the leading rubber industry rankings.

Six reasons to adopt Endurica workflows

Technically superior (click for details)
Save big on development out of pocket costs (click for details)
Reduce the need for physical testing (see page 2, blue box on right)
Speed to market (able to use the tools immediately)
Accuracy in meeting client needs (click for details)
Easier answers down the road (click for details)

Busting Myths About Endurica

May 24, 2022April 20, 2022 by William V. Mars, Ph.D., P.E.

True or False? Test your knowledge about Endurica

Endurica is only a software company.
False. While Endurica is perhaps best known for its game-changing fatigue solver software, we also deliver industry-leading testing services, testing instruments, and training. If you need durability for elastomers, we are uniquely positioned to bring you winning capabilities.

Endurica is used by the majority of top rubber product makers.
True. As of the 2021 Rubber News global rankings report, 6 of the top 9 global rubber product makers are using Endurica solutions to characterize and simulate durability.

Endurica invented Critical Plane Analysis.
False, but... Critical Plane Analysis – the technology that gives best accuracy fatigue life predictions under complex multiaxial loading – was originally pioneered by the metals fatigue community. But Endurica does hold the patent on the first Critical Plane Analysis algorithm suitable for elastomers, and we are the world leaders in making the technology available to product developers.

Wohler curve based methods are just as accurate and competitive as Endurica’s Critical Plane / Fracture Mechanics-based method.
False. Wohler curve based methods suffer from many problems that are solved by the Critical Plane Method. 1) they often assume a wrong crack orientation rather than searching for the most damaging scenario, 2) they do not account properly for mode of deformation effects, 3) the testing program required to populate a Wohler curve scales poorly and has poor repeatability.

I don’t need Endurica software if I already have a metal fatigue code (nCode DesignLife, FEMFAT, MSC Fatigue, and fe-safe).
False. Metals and elastomers have completely distinct molecular structures and behaviors. While metals operate at small strain, elastomers tend to operate at large strain. Where metals exhibit linear elasticity, elastomers exhibit nonlinear behavior. Using a metal fatigue code for analyzing elastomer fatigue is like trying to use a car as a boat: you can certainly drive the car into the water, but you end up on the bottom of the lake.

Endurica solvers work with Ansys, Simulia, and Hexagon simulation platforms
True. We maintain software development partnerships with the major finite element software vendors so that we can offer easy to use pre-and post- integrations with Ansys, Abaqus, and MSC/Marc. You can use the Endurica workflows with the finite element code that works for you. We also develop the fe-safe/Rubber plugin.

Everyone knows you can simulate durability.
False. We’re always surprised by the number of people at conferences and trade shows who don’t know that simulating the durability of rubber is even possible. Our tools simulate everything from basic constant amplitude cyclic loading, to variable amplitude, multiaxial loading (up to 6 input channels!), ageing, strain crystallization, ozone attack, cyclic softening, creep crack growth, self-heating, block cycle schedules, residual life. Our multi-threading capabilities mean that large jobs can execute quickly. Our solvers are fast enough to compute damage in real-time for a full finite element model!

Endurica solutions have had significant commercial impact.
True. Endurica was founded in 2008 to reduce rubber product launch cost and risk and we have saved our clients millions of dollars. Endurica’s impact was recognized with the prestigious U.S. Small Business Administration Tibbetts award.

Will Mars on the Rubber Industry: A Look Back 10 Years, Where We Are Now, A Look Ahead 10 Years

June 15, 2022November 14, 2018 by William V. Mars, Ph.D., P.E.

Q: With regards to fatigue life prediction methods, where was the rubber industry 10 years ago?

Will: There was plenty of great academic work and good understanding of fundamentals, but the methods were only deployed – if at all – via “homebuilt” solutions that could never support a broad enough audience to really impact daily product design decisions. Simulation methods and experimental methods shared theoretical foundations but they were poorly integrated. They suffered from operational problems, noisy data and open-ended test duration. It was possible to analyze a crack if you could mesh it, but the added bookkeeping and convergence burdens were usually not sustainable in a production engineering context. Mostly, analysts relied on tradition-based crack nucleation approaches that would look at quantities like strain or stress or strain energy density. These were not very accurate and they were limiting in many ways, even though they were widely used. They left companies very dependent on build and break iterations.

Q: Where is the industry today?

Will: The early adopters of our solutions have been off and running now for a number of years. Our critical plane method has gained recognition for its high accuracy when dealing with multiaxial cases, cases involving crack closure, cases involving strain crystallization. Our testing methods have gained recognition for high reliability and throughput. Our users are doing production engineering with our tools. They are consistently winning on durability issues. They are handling durability issues right up front when they bid for new business. They are expanding their in-house labs to increase testing capacity and they are winning innovation awards from OEMs. They are using actual road-load cases from their customers to design light-weight, just-right parts that meet durability requirements. The automotive industry has lead adoption but aerospace, tires, energy, and consumer products are also coming up. We have users across the entire supply chain: raw material suppliers, component producers and OEMs. The huge value that was locked up because durability was previously so difficult to manage is now unlocked in new ways for the first time. This has been the wind in Endurica’s sails for the last 10 years.

Q: Where do you see the industry in 10 years?

Will: In 10 years, OEMs will expect durability from all component producers on day 1, even for radical projects. They will expect designs already optimized for cost and weight. They will push more warrantee responsibility to the supplier. They will monitor durability requirements via shared testing and simulation workflows. Suppliers will pitch solutions using characterization and simulation to show their product working well in your product. The design and selection of rubber compounds to match applications will enter a golden age as real-world customer usage conditions will finally be taken fully into account. Where design and selection was previously limited by the budget for a few build and break iterations, and low visibility of design options, they will soon be informed by an almost unlimited evaluation of all possibilities. Where simulation methods have traditionally had greatest impact on product design functions, we will also start to see rubber part Digital Twins that track damage accumulation and create value in the operational functions of a business. Durability is definitely set to become a strong arena for competition in the next 10 years.