Full Body Car Analysis in the Time and Frequency Domains - Sheet, Spot and Seam Weld Fatigue Benchmark Studies

The fatigue analysis of a full car body requires the sheet metal (sheet fatigue), spot welds (spot weld fatigue) and seam welds (seam weld fatigue) to be thoroughly evaluated for durability. Traditionally this has always been done (via separate processes) in the time domain but recently new techniques have been implemented to perform all of these tasks in the frequency domain with numerous advantages. This paper will summarize the frequency domain process and then compare the results (and performance) against the more usual time base result