Cars quality and reliability are every day becoming more and more important for the end-users. At the same time, the weight reduction is a must due to the need of reducing the pollution emission, improve the vehicle handling ensuring both high passive safety performances and comfort.
The engineers has to face with the challenge of designing complex and light structures, often using non-conventional materials, without compromise the overall performances.
This is possible using adequate CAE tools and developing robust methodologies able to predict, reducing uncertainty to the minimum, the product performances by analysis.
In this paper will be presented a new methodology for the car closures fatigue life prediction developed with the following goals: reduce the FEM model preparation time and, simultaneously, improve the model predictability taking into account the gasket shape, the gasket entrapped air and the lock kinematics.
A new SW tool that implements both stress and strain life approach has been developed in order to post-process the LS-DYNA closures slam analysis.