Predicted minimum door-closing velocity based on a three-dimensional door-closing simulation

Automotive door seals are intended to prevent dust and water inflow from outside and isolate noise. To achieve these design targets, a door seal should have a reaction force higher than a specific criterion, while the effort to close the door requires a minimum reaction force. A door-seal design can be defined as a process of compromise between these two reciprocal design targets. Door-closing velocity involves a number of factors, including the door seal, and to date has only been evaluated using experimental methods. Experimental methods make it difficult to determine the main factors in door-closing effort, and are not particularly helpful to the development of optimized seal design. Computational efforts toward door-seal design have only focused on drawings and structural analysis. This paper develops a numerical process to predict minimum door-closing velocity from both a real vehicle’s geometrical/physical data and virtual reaction force versus closing time data. A three-dimensional door-closing analysis, using explicit code was introduced to produce a more realistic solution.