Case Study: Volvo improves suspension simulation accuracy with MSC Software's Adams-Marc co-simulation

Adams-Marc Co-Simulation Provides Efficient and Accurate Method of Simulating Misuse Load Events

Volvo Car Corporation used MSC Software’s Adams multibody dynamics software to study peak load and misuse events such as driving over a curb and skidding against a curb. Volvo wanted a way to simulate Level 2 load cases, which involve plasticity and buckling, earlier in the development cycle without building expensive prototype hardware for each design alternative.

MSC Software’s Adams-Marc co-simulation enabled Volvo to include geometrically and materially nonlinear structural behavior in the analysis and accurately predict Level 2 skid against curb behavior on the Volvo S80 front suspension. The simulated low velocity and high velocity impact cases matched the physical tests, and the full simulation ran in 40 minutes on a Dell laptop with 16 Gigabytes of RAM and a 2.7 GHz CPU, helping Volvo evaluate lighter suspension designs and reduce prototype verification cycles.

Volvo

Anders Wirje

Technical Expert at Endurance Attribute and Chassis CAE Department,