Developing and Testing of Mechanisms and Kinematics at
Johnson Controls
Matthias Göbel, Johnson Controls GmbH
The FEA department of Johnson Controls has to verify the
designs for seats, interiors and all needed mechanisms in
terms of function, safety and durability. The focus in the
beginning was mainly on crash and misuse loads, but more and
more the designers ask for the support in designing e.g. height
adjustable seats or seat folding mechanisms with questions
like “Which forces are acting over the adjustment field
of my height adjust mechanism, what efforts will I have on
the height adjuster handle, what forces will act on pivot
points and links, what spring do I need to balance out my
system in all possible positions and loads”. The designers
used their CAD-system for kinematic studies only or created
small specific tools like excel sheets for static load cases.
MotionView was introduced to extend these studies to consider
kinetic effects like motions, damping and gravity without
having to run time and cost intensive explicit FEA simulations.
It was found as a good, fast, flexible and last not least
descriptive solution to achieve that. This presentation will
show how Johnson Controls started to support their designers
with simulations using MotionView and what will be the next
steps.
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