Water Intrusion in Automotive Door Latches Using SPH Method 2023-28-1338

An automotive door latch that functions manually or electronically is a vital component of a door closure system. It primarily aims to provide security of the occupants by securing the door system by ensuring timely locking and unlocking of the doors. A wide range of factors like safety, ergonomics, and security influence the development of these latches to eliminate safety. With the growing trend and advancements, automotive electronics is becoming more complex and prevalent. Hence, any exposure of electrical/electronic components to water make them susceptible to short circuits, corrosion etc., thereby may make it the functionality of systems and increasing the chances of failure in these devices. Intrusion of water possible into the latch system can be disastrous depending on the climatic conditions. Stringent safety criteria have given rise to unconventional test methods that are time-consuming and hence necessitate virtual validation techniques. Virtual validation becomes a viable option and with proper correlation work it helps to address these types of problems at low cost and in early stages of product development The latch is subjected to an impact by a jet of water, modelled using Smoothened Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) technique. SPH is a mesh-free method used to simulate fluid flow and has found its application in many engineering problems & fluid structure interaction (FSI) models. Since it can handle problems involving free surfaces, deformable boundaries, moving interfaces, extremely large deformation, and crack propagation, this was found to be an ideal technique for simulation. Water is made to impinge on the latch assembly and the/those water accumulated regions observed in the simulation were compared with the test results which are found to have good correlation. A design modification was suggested to prevent/minimize water ingression into the system which was further analyzed and proved to be efficient based on the FSI methodology.