Date: Nov 23, 2011 Source: (
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Endurica LLC and Safe Technology Limited have partnered to produce fe-safe/Rubber™ -- a unique solution for computer simulation of fatigue failure in elastomers. For the first time, analysts responsible for the durability of elastomeric products will have a reliable and well validated method that enables them to investigate, at the inception of a design change, the issues that will determine product durability.
Similar solutions for fatigue analysis from FEA of metallic components have been available for many years. They have become an essential part of maturing and qualifying design concepts, providing a cost-effective and proven basis for justifying investment in physical prototypes and testing. "But the metal fatigue codes do not work well for rubber components. They do not consider rubber's very unique structure and nonlinear behavior," notes John Draper, CEO of Safe Technology.
Endurica's technology now offers rubber developers the opportunity to reap the benefits of fatigue analysis at the design stage. Dr. William Mars, Endurica's founder and president explains: "Our technology is purpose-developed for elastomers, and it possesses a formidable validation case. The technology handles rubber's finite-strain kinematics, hyperelastic stress-strain behavior, strain crystallization, temperature-dependence, and other effects such as ozone attack. These effects have been captured in our model, and they have been integrated with widely accepted procedures such as critical plane analysis, fracture mechanics, and rainflow counting to provide a complete system capable of accounting for very complex duty cycles, including multiaxial loadings and variable amplitudes."
The U.S. Army is among the first customers of the technology. Their application is the development of rubber components in the track system of military ground vehicles. Other early interest has come from the heavy equipment, consumer products, offshore, medical devices and automotive sectors.
Endurica's patented technology is available immediately from Safe Technology as a stand-alone product. A fully integrated version of the technology, taking advantage of fe-safe's friendly user interface and direct links to Finite Element codes, will be available at the end of Q1 2012. fe-safe/Rubber will support all major FEA codes including Abaqus, ANSYS, NASTRAN (MSC, NEi, NX), Pro-M, Ideas.
Endurica LLC develops the world's most versatile and best-validated fatigue life simulation system for elastomers. Through its technology and services, Endurica empowers its customers to analyze real-world fatigue performance of elastomers at the design stage, when the greatest opportunity exists to influence performance, and before investment in costly fatigue testing of prototypes.
