CAE Methodologies for Virtual Prototyping of Cast Aluminum Suspension Components

This work describes numerical methodologies used for both fatigue life prediction and impact load analysis of automotive suspension components made of a cast aluminium alloy. Some issues related with finite element (FE) discretization are discussed, and the main guidelines for fatigue analysis and critical load determination are presented. FE stress results have been validated through comparison with experimental strain gauges measurements, and a good agreement is shown between the predicted fatigue and impact behaviour of the component, and experimental data obtained from bench tests. Such an agreement concerns, in particular, the failure locations, the fatigue lifetime, the critical load and the post-buckling behaviour.