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Strategies adopted to define material fatigue properties as input data for new FEA-FLP integrated procedure used at the design stage of product development are discussed, highlighting the influences exerted by actual large scale production processes. Examples related to the main structural automotive components are also presented.

Automotive industries, due to the highly competitive nature of international markets, are undergoing to reduce the time to market of the new products. The evaluation of durability of components at the design stage could be very effective in order to increase the reliability and to reduce the associated testing time in the experimental fields. The actual components are subjected to time variable loading so, for a correct fatigue analysis, it is necessary take into account the influences of geometrical effects, the multiaxiality of the loadings and the surface conditions. The fatigue analysis at the design stage is useful in case a FLP (Fatigue Life Prediction) tool, fully integrated to FEA (Finite Element Analysis) codes, is developed allowing design engineers to do an effective management of these techniques.