ADVANCED DEVELOPMENT OF EXPLICIT FEA IN AUTOMOTIVE APPLICATIONS

Today, nonlinear analysis is no longer new to finite element society, but the explicit finite element method could still be fresh. Since DYN A3D was developed, the explicit finite element method for nonlinear tr ansient dynamics has found its successful applications in automobile s afety simulations. Ford Motor Company is one of the pioneer industry c ompanies that uses a great deal of CAE in product design and manufactu ring. This helps Ford engineers make faster and better design, elimina tes a large number of prototype vehicle tests and significantly reduce s the costs. Presented in this report are selected examples of our app lications in safety simulations and other CAE activities, all done by Ford in-house crash simulation code FCRASH.