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Crash-Test is a vehicle impact test that aims to analyze and evaluate a vehicle’s capacity to withstand different types of collisions. During the shock, most of the impact energy is absorbed by the structural elements of the vehicle in order to greatest protection possible to the passengers. In addition to the test with the impact of the actual vehicle, simulation analysis using the Finite Element Method (FEM) is used. The crash test is extremely expensive and, therefore, unfeasible to be performed repeatedly. In this way, the FEM plays an important role in the analysis of the vehicle's impact resistance, reducing development time and project costs. However, many factors that affect the accuracy of the simulation are not adequately taken into account. Most of the structural components of the vehicle body are manufactured by the stamping process.

Aiming the decrease of manufacturing costs, the automotive industry uses Computational Aided Engineering (CAE) and prototype testing for product development. In the field of simulation CAE could be performed using FEA (finite element analysis) or CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamic), the last one is the analysis of systems involving fluid flow, heat transfer and associated phenomena such as chemical reactions by means of computer-based simulation. One of the most important components of cooling system is a water pump which is evaluated through the fluid dynamic analysis. Therefore, this work aims to analyze the fluid flow inside an automotive water pump considering a three-dimensional steady-state using CFD, but also developing a methodology to evaluate it. The parameters of the analysis and the volumetric mesh were according to the simulated results approached the experimental results.

This paper aims at analytical and numerical evaluation of the structure of a Baja. It will be described some load conditions to analyze the overall structure of Baja well as localized elements, in order to prevent premature failure of the vehicle during the competition and improvements in the design phase. The numerical analysis will be conducted via finite elements to establish the optimization of weight and gain performance of the vehicle. Analytical evaluation it will conducted via propositions of physics. Results obtained for the initial concept of the project and compared with the structural changes after the trial proposition will be presented. Analysis of study resulted in improvements in manufacturing reducing weight. Also it was expected to increase the structural performance associated to a better understanding of the vehicle as a whole.

This paper presents an aerodynamic analysis of a single-seat vehicle designed for the Formula SAE competition. The analysis was conducted using the finite volume method via computational fluid dynamic (CFD) considering a three-dimensional steady-state. In this case, the initial concept and a proposal concept with aerodynamic improvements were evaluated. The proposal consisted in geometric modifications to mitigate the impact caused by the wind along the body in order to minimize the drag coefficient. Based on the aerodynamic study, we were able to create proposals where the drag coefficient could be minimized, because the better understanding of flow's parameters. For each geometric modification the results are shown in order to establish advantages and disadvantages in relation to drag coefficient.

This work evaluates the impacts on the temperature and flow fields caused by alteration on the geometry of an automotive engine cooling water pipe section. The pipe section studied is located after the water pump. The straight pipe section was altered to a curved section and it was located closer to the exhaust pipe, to attend engine downsizing demands. The analysis was carried out though the finite volume method, considering steady-state, bi-dimensional flow. The results point out that pressure drop in the conduit is little altered with geometric variations, but the temperature conditions are affected by the proximity of the duct to the heat source.

External components of an automotive body are manufactured from a stamping of sheet metal plane resulting in a final product with variable thickness due to different levels of stretch and a heterogeneous distribution of residual plastic strain. Generally, these informations are not considered in numerical simulations of the product and may cause considerable errors in the analysis of stamped parts involving nonlinearities. This work aimed to simulate an event called palm-printing in an automobile fender, with and without the consideration of the final data of the numerical simulation of the stamping process (final thickness and residual plastic strain) and the results compared with those obtained experimentally. Results showed that the consideration of thickness and hardening from the stamping process can improve the correlation of final results in quasi-static nonlinear analysis.

The application of finite element method (FEM) is widespread used to structural analysis. However the prescription or the consideration of a porous material parameter is still challenging. Thus, this work proposes a methodology applied to the finite element method considering a value of porosity. The goal is evaluate the structural behavior considering prescription of material porosity for 03 (three) loading conditions: analysis of natural frequencies extraction; analysis for concentrated load; analysis for inertial loading. Also is presented a comparison between different mesh refinement (size of element), and damaged elasticity modulus.