Technical Paper
Numerical Approach to Simulate Automotive Heater Hose Slip-Off Using Statistical Analysis
2021-09-22
2021-26-0380
An automotive heater hose is a nylon-reinforced rubber component which has pressurized coolant flows from engine to Heating, Ventilation Air Conditioning (HVAC) unit and connected at either end using spring or worm clamps. One of the important design failure modes to study is the coolant leakage during hose slip-off scenario that can lead to walk-home failures. Overall dimensional variations, assembly loads and part variations can lead to such scenarios which are crucial to investigate using statistical approach for the robust design. To establish this, an experimental setup was conducted, and an equivalent CAE model was developed using Abaqus Standard. The Finite Element model comprised of an engine union pipe, a rubber heater hose and a spring clamp on the engine side of the vehicle. A suitable hyperelastic model for nylon-reinforced rubber and friction values were used to correctly represent the behavior of heater hose with adjoining steel components.