A Robust Methodology to Predict the Fatigue Life of an Automotive Closures System Subjected to Hinge and Check Link Load 2020-01-0599

In order to provide an accurate estimation of fatigue life of automotive door hinges and check strap mounting location, it is crucial to understand the loading conditions associated with opening and closing the door. There are many random factors and uncertainties that affect the durability performance of hinge and check strap mount structures in either a direct or indirect way. Excessive loads are generated at the hinge and check arm mounting region during abuse conditions when opening the door. Repeating the abuse conditions will lead to fatigue failures in these components. Most influencing parameter affecting the fatigue performance for the door was the loads due to hinge-check arm sensitivity stoppage and the distance between hinge and check strap attachments. However, the probability of occurrences was low, but the impact is high. In this proposed investigation, Monte Carlo simulation methodology is applied on the randomly selected samples with predicted distribution of all dependent factors to know the fatigue life variations in the hinge mount structure. Weibull distribution is the most efficient way of estimating the fatigue failure or fatigue life. This can be estimated on the basis of the function of the populated size. The mean and standard deviation of the simulated fatigue life converged with a greater number of randomly varied samples. This technique defines the maximum allowable load cycles on the hinges and the check arm mount structure, and their variability. It helps in keeping the door opening efforts below the target value. The fatigue life cycle of the door is predicted closest to the experiments by applying the proposed method on more number of samples. It also keeps the probability of failure under check