A Strategy for Material Testing and Data Management for the Automotive Industry 

Today, CAE is integrated with modern automotive product development. This creates new challenges for departments that support new product development. In the materials arena, the testing is elevated to much higher levels of sophistication and precision to accommodate the complex material models used in CAE. It is no longer simple matter to convert raw data into material model parameters. We present an end-to-end strategy that gives automakers a well managed pathway to transforming to simulation-based design. We operate a quick-turnaround expert material testing lab to support high-end CAE and product development. We provide a data management software designed specifically to capture and display material data of any complexity. The software can transform raw material data into material parameter files for most commonly used simulations. The CAE Modeler software is of adequate sophistication to fit equations to data, visualize material models along with raw data, and output material cards. Examples for high strain-rate crash material modeling will be presented.