Virtual Testing Methodology For Extraction Of Parameters Of Simplified Joint Model

Lightweight and multi-material structures are becoming more and more popular across different industries. However, one of the main challenges in their development process lies in the proper design of their connections, which usually require highly detailed 3D models that are too demanding to be used in a system level. Therefore, there is a need for developing simplified parametric joint models that are able to predict the complex physical behaviour of such connections. This study proposes a virtual testing methodology to estimate the optimal joint model parameters that better predict the structural response of a highly detailed 3D model. It consists of three main steps: (i) a design of experiments of the simplified joint model (ii) the construction of a response surface model that faithfully represents the sampled design space and (iii) a surrogate-based optimization to obtain the optimal values of the model parameters. Two application examples studying two different joining technologies (adhesive and bolted joints) are presented, discussing the capabilities of the proposed methodology.