Journals Proceedings

Abstract

In this paper, the fatigue analysis part of a project which aims to develop a computer aided methodology for developing/designing of the polyethylene fuel tanks is presented. The fatigue performance of the polyethylene material based on the stress-life (S-N) approach is obtained by coupon tests. Dynamic “g forces”, which act on the fuel tanks as base excitations, are obtained from the specific bad road runway experiments by the Mercedes-Benz Turk (MBT) R&D Center. In the finite element simulation, dynamic stresses are obtained for different fullness ratios of the tank by using PERMAS V15. Fluid-structure interaction problem is also considered, fluid (fuel) is modeled with acoustic elements, and structure (tank) is modeled with shell elements. Fatigue life prediction of the fuel tank is conducted by using the FEMFAT (Finite Element Fatigue Analysis) program. After evaluating results, some geometry optimization is performed. Finally, all fatigue analysis results are compared with the hydro-pulse test results for validation.