Fatigue life simulation for Inspire concepts - A How To
If you've ever generated a design concept (e.g. through topology optimization) in Inspire and wondered what its estimated fatigue life would be and if additional light weighting could be performed - beyond factor of safety, this is the article for you.
Light weighting is an important goal with many designs to improve performance, reduce material and manufacturing costs, and reduce design cycle time to final product. Typically during the concept phase factors of safety are a sound performance criteria and as the design matures in later stages more "detailed analysis" like fatigue is performed to ensure the design meets expected service life.
The following diagram and two videos detail how fatigue simulation may be performed on Inspire concepts to give preliminary insight as to the fatigue performance, which can help inform the changes in the beginning phases of design and ultimately help reduce redesign in the later stages of validation. There are two fatigue workflows which may be implemented depending on the solver used within Inspire - Simsolid or OptiStruct.
Video 1: For Inspire (Simsolid) concepts implement Simsolid (Advanced)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZJfHUWwphI
Video 2: For Inspire (OptiStruct) concepts implement HyperLife
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQSRsL4o9x8