Collaboration on fatigue failure simulation

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Collaboration on fatigue failure simulation
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Monday, November 21, 2011

Findlay, OH - Endurica and Safe Technology are partnering to produce fe-safe/Rubber, a unique solution for computer simulation of fatigue failure in elastomers. For the first time, analysts responsible for the durability of elastomeric products will have a reliable and well validated method that enables them to investigate, at the inception of a design change, the issues that will determine product durability. Similar solutions for fatigue analysis from FEA of metallic components have been available for many years. They have become an essential part of maturing and qualifying design concepts, providing a cost-effective and proven basis for justifying investment in physical prototypes and testing. “But the metal fatigue codes do not work well for rubber components. They do not consider rubber’s very unique structure and nonlinear behavior,” notes John Draper, CEO of Safe Technology. Endurica’s technology now offers rubber developers the opportunity to reap the benefits of fatigue analysis at the design stage. Dr. William Mars, Endurica’s founder and president, explained, “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.” 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/Rubber’s friendly user interface and direct links to finite element codes, will be available at the end of the first quarter of 2012. fe-safe/Rubber will support all major FEA codes including Abaqus, ANSYS, NASTRAN (MSC, NEi, NX), Pro-M and Ideas.