Tying Two Forces

摘要

Only a decade ago, analyzing the myriad forces and flows that came together to inflate an airbag could be a lengthy and complicated undertaking. Flash forward 10 years and mechanical engineers can now commonly combine fluid and structural analyses to best find how these forces, acting in tandem, affect an object. In fact, so common is fluid-structure analysis today that many finite element analysis packages offer ways for an engineer to model both the structural and fluid forces that affect a design, said Bob Williams, product manager at Algor Inc. of Pittsburgh.