General considerations for the influence of mesh density in LS Dyna

Accurate and reliable CAE results are essential for the product development process in manufacturing industries. This is particularly so in the automotive industry where virtual simulation predictions are gradually replacing physical testing in the ever greater drive to reduce product development time and costs. CAE is nowadays completely integrated in the development process and critical design decisions are often based on the FEM calculations. The accuracy of predictions is very much dependent on the detail used to model physical structures; larger the models, better the results. However, larger models also demand much greater computing resources, especially for crash simulations. Model sizes are, therefore, dictated by reasonable computing times to solve the equations. At the same time, there is also a tendency to produce larger models not only for better accuracy but also as a result of use of automatic model generation to reduce time and cost for this phase of CAE analysis and to enable effective decision making based on CAE performance predictions. This background will be documented in this paper.