I’m constantly fascinated by the advancement of simulation technologies and particularly so when it comes to simulating complex behaviours or materials.
With this in mind, the announcement from fatigue anlaysis specialists, Safe Technology, that it has partnered with Endurica to fe-safe/Rubber.
As you might have guessed from the name, this is a system (based on Safe’s fe-safe platform) for the simulation of fatigue failure in elastomers – something which has traditionally been quite difficult.
Why is that interesting?
Fatigue simulation has been around for decades at various levels (it’s now starting to appear in more mainstream simulation products) but those codes typically focus on metallic components. There have also been static analysis tools that can handle elastomers somewhat unique, non-linear properties. But I’ve not seen the two combined before allowing for the simulation of elastomer’s behaviour over time and under cyclical loading conditions. Which considering what elastomers are most often used for, is perhaps a surprise.
Dr. William Mars, Endurica’s founder and president, explains: “Our technology is purpose-developed for elastomers and it possesses a formidable validation case. The technology handles rubber’s finite-strain kinematics, hyperelastic stress-strain behavior, strain crystallization, temperature-dependence, and other effects such as ozone attack.
“These effects have been captured in our model and they have been integrated with widely accepted procedures such as critical plane analysis, fracture mechanics, and rainflow counting to provide a complete system capable of accounting for very complex duty cycles, including multiaxial loadings and variable amplitudes.”
According to the press release, the US Army is among the first customers of the technology.
Their application is the development of rubber components in the track system of military ground vehicles. Other early interest has come from the heavy equipment, consumer products, offshore, medical devices and automotive sectors.
Endurica’s patented technology is available immediately from Safe Technology as a stand-alone product. A fully integrated version of the technology, taking advantage of fe-safe’s friendly user interface and direct links to Finite Element codes, will be available at the end of Q1 2012. fe-safe/Rubber will support all major FEA codes including Abaqus, ANSYS, NASTRAN (MSC, NEi, NX), Pro-M, Ideas.
* rubber-based headline with no puns or double entrendes? Must be the jetlag.
