Simulation of Full Vehicle Misuse Behavior 2004-01-0192

As a result of the promotion of lightweight design and the trend towards increasing vehicle weights, misuse events, such as e.g. driving through a pothole or striking a curb on slippery roads, are increasingly coming to represent the critical design path. Up to present, it has only been possible to assess a vehicle's overall misuse behavior by means of prototype tests, which involve the risk of additional, extremely cost-intensive and time-consuming modification and validation loops at a very late stage of the development process. The possibility of simulating full vehicle misuse behavior enables BMW to obtain fundamental information regarding the misuse-relevant force level and damage chain in an early phase of the design process.