Improved design of single-layered wire strand for combined tensile and crimping application with meshing optimization

Faced with increasing competition in the global automotive market, reducing costs and design time has become a major focus of development among manufacturers. Faced with these needs, the numerical simulation of shaping processes has become an es-sential tool. It saves considerable time in the upstream phase of a project by reducing the number of experimental campaigns on prototypes. The studied mechanical system consists mainly in a part crimping at one end of a multi-stranded wire rope, which is stressed in tension. In order to reduce calculation time, it is im-portant to get the optimal meshing parameters which provide a high accuracy. In this paper, a numerical model of a single layered wire rope is studied. The objective is to determine the optimal size and shape of meshing elements to get both accurate and fast results. First of all, the wire strand is investigated in tension and compared with the analytical formulation by G.Costello. Then, the organized wire strand is investigated in crimping process. The pro-cess reveals an optimal solution for wire strand structure with a 95% reduction of computation time without losing accuracy. This model is then used to simulate the behavior of a strand in one of the first-ever combined crimping-tensile test in order to obtain a minimal crimping length. This work can be very important for de-signers to reduce considerably the calculation time of their nume-rical models while guarantying a great accuracy in the mechanical behavior of a wire rope.

Automated summary

Reducing costs and design time is crucial for manufacturers in the global automotive market. Numerical simulation of shaping processes has become an essential tool to meet these needs. Studying the mechanical system of crimping a multi-stranded wire rope and optimizing meshing parameters can significantly reduce calculation time while maintaining accuracy.