A CAE Tool for Process Optimisation According to FMVSS201U

Project work being conducted at P+Z Engineering has resulted in the need to develop a tool to aid in the FE-Simulation in accordance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 201u commonly known as FMVSS201u. The task was to automate the alignment process of the Free Motion Head Form. The Free Motion Head Form is the test body for the interior impact testing. Due to the large number of impact points on the vehicles interior that are required for testing, the determination of the impact points and the correct alignment of the free motion head form are extremely time consuming tasks. Priority was placed on developing an efficient process accompanied by a reliable tool to aid in the automation of this process. ANSA has been and is currently being delivered with features which automate the alignment of the Free Motion Head Form on the vehicle interior trim. Additionally solver interfaces that export the necessary transformation cards allowing for quick and easy implementation of the alignment information into a full scale finite element model have also been incorporated. This paper aims to shed some light on the complexity of the FMVSS201u standard and what aspects also need to be considered when setting up simulation models before hardware testing has started. The new features added into the ANSA FMVSS201 Safety Tool will also be described.