RUDN : professor developed a computer model that describes all types of vehicle body damage caused by fatigue failure

A professor at RUDN University developed a computational model that fully describes the damage that occurs in car bodies from material fatigue. The computational experiment showed that on uneven roads, low speed causes more severe damage to the body than average speed. This discovery will help to more accurately assess the resistance of vehicles to loads.
Due to irregularities on the roads, automobiles are subject to dynamic loads causing material fatigue, that is, frequent exposure to these loads leads to the formation of microcracks, parts and weld beads gradually deteriorate each other. The body of a car is the basis of the entire structure and the main load falls on it. Deterioration of the weld seams on the bodywork affects the impact resistance of the entire vehicle and this can cause damage. Fatigue resistance can be tested experimentally. However, this requires materials and a specially equipped site for testing. Consequently, a professor at RUDN University developed a mathematical model that describes how fatigue weld beads deteriorate.

The professor and his team of scientists developed the model using the multibody system method. This method is used to describe the interaction of the parts of a system, which move relative to each other. The scientists then created a computer simulation in which the “car” was moving on roads with different levels of roughness and at different speeds. For example, on the “B” road, an almost perfectly smooth track, the car moved at a speed of 50, 70 and 90 km / h, and on the “E” road, the most “worn”, at a speed of 5, 10 and 15 km / h. A total of 12 experiments were carried out with four types of roads and using three different speeds on each one.