Aged Adhesive Joint Performance Prediction
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Solution Overview
Problem
The performance of adhesive joints in vehicles when aged is not well understood, unlike welded joints, posing challenges in designing vehicles with reliable mechanical properties over time and environmental exposure.
Innovation Solution
A method involving adhesive coupons subjected to aging conditions, followed by mechanical testing, and simulation of vehicle crashes using computer models to validate the performance of virtual and real vehicles with adhesive joints before and after aging, ensuring compliance with predetermined standards.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If adhesive joints are used to replace welded joints in vehicle manufacturing, then ease of manufacture is improved, but reliability of aged joints deteriorates due to unknown performance characteristics
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by conducting aging tests on adhesive joints before vehicle production to determine their mechanical properties after environmental exposure. This advance characterization allows designers to select adhesives and joint configurations that will maintain reliability over time, eliminating the uncertainty that previously hindered adhesive adoption in vehicle manufacturing.
2Reliability
If aged adhesive joints are tested to determine performance, then reliability is improved, but loss of time increases due to extended testing requirements
Solution Approach 1:
Aging tests are performed on adhesive joints before vehicle assembly and production, allowing performance data to be obtained in advance. This preliminary testing enables the establishment of design criteria and material specifications that ensure reliability without requiring time-consuming tests on completed vehicles.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses adhesive coupons as simplified copies or representations of actual adhesive joints in vehicles. These coupons can be aged and tested independently, providing reliable performance data without requiring testing of entire vehicles, thus significantly reducing the time loss while maintaining reliability assessment accuracy.
3Reliability
If comprehensive aging and crash testing is conducted on real vehicles, then reliability data is improved, but productivity decreases due to extended development cycles
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs computer models as virtual copies of vehicles that incorporate aging data from adhesive coupon tests. These virtual vehicle models can be subjected to crash simulations to predict performance without requiring physical crash tests on aged vehicles, thereby obtaining comprehensive reliability data while maintaining high productivity and avoiding extended development cycles.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces physical mechanical testing of aged vehicles with computer-based simulation systems. By substituting physical crash tests with virtual simulations that incorporate aging characteristics, the system obtains comprehensive reliability data without the time and resource constraints of physical testing, thus preserving productivity.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of producing a vehicle includes determining the performance of aged adhesive coupons, which are subject to a worst-case scenario of manufacturing, aging, and stress testing. Virtual vehicle components are modeled using the performance of the aged adhesive coupons. The virtual vehicle components are then subjected to virtual mechanical forces to determine their virtual performance, which is then validated against the performance of identical real-life aged vehicle components subjected to identical mechanical forces. A virtual vehicle is modeled using the validated virtual vehicle components. The virtual performance of the virtual vehicle when subject to a virtual crash test is then compared against a predetermined standard, and the design of the virtual vehicle is considered feasible if its performance exceeds the predetermined standard. A vehicle is manufactured according to the feasible design of the virtual vehicle.