Abstract

The strength assessment of plastic components is a problem in practice. In the field of material modeling and failure behavior of plastics, there are numerous scientific studies - however, there is a lack of structured compilation and useful presentation of the already existing knowledge. The democratization of simulation in the sense of CAD-integrated simulation and the increase in the user-friendliness of simulation software is progressing. This leads to the increased use of simulation in early design phases by non-simulation experts. Typically, a good product knowledge can be assumed here, but no profound knowledge of numerical methods and material mechanics. In this respect, it is important for the beneficial application of simulation to achieve a good trade-off between the simplest possible modeling approaches (material model, strength assessment) and sufficient fidelity of the simulation results. As a rule, the supposedly simple question "Will the component hold?" cannot be answered easily on the basis of a simulation. Neither directly by the simulation software and often not even by a simulation expert. In practice, different, non-standardized simulation and assessment approaches are used, or experience-based, subjective procedures are employed. In addition to the uncertainty of such approaches, the comparability of different analyses is not given. These are major obstacles to the democratization of structural simulation, especially in the plastics processing industry. This is where the new guideline VDI 2016 "Strength Assessment of Components made of Thermoplastics" (VDI = The Association of German Engineers) comes in. The guideline is currently being developed within a working group of 14 industrial and university organizations. The guideline is based on the use of simple isotropic material models and its applicability even with a "thin" data basis with the material information usually available in the public domain. The aim is to ensure a balanced ratio of effort and accuracy, so that even non-simulation or material experts can carry out a plausible and reproducible strength assessment of plastic components using "on-board" tools. This paper gives an overview of the content of the guideline, the methods used and the expected benefits for the simulation community.