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It is a well-know fact that cost and time-to-market constraints have gained an ever-increasing importance in the recent years in the global automotive industry. Either due to economic problems in emerging markets or to the presence of strong competition is US and Europe, automakers strive, using different strategies, to find ways of satisfying these constraints. One of the most promising tools to assist in reducing both development cost and time is CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) or Virtual Prototyping which, by using numerical models of components, systems and/or vehicles, is capable of assessing their behavior in areas such as noise, vibration and harshness (NVH), durability, impact safety and vehicle dynamics. A very important question that is frequently faced by CAE development teams is related to how well the numerical results match those that will be obtained when the vehicle is actually built.

Nowadays design and product engineers are looking to reduce costs and shorten time-to-market by eliminating physical prototypes and producing superior products by performing analysis earlier in the design cycle. In this way CAE analyses are normally used to direct the product development and to help to solve field failures. One of advantages that Finite Element analyses can provide is the possibility to change the parts design, implement ribs, reinforcements and change the material properties and thickness in a fast way and present the best solution for the part evaluated besides the great engineering cost reduction. This paper presents a finite element analysis performed on a vehicle jack support that needed to be improved to withstand durability peak loads. After defining the stress reduction target, the jack support was evaluated applying static and dynamic loads for several design proposals.