NAFEMS Americas and Digital Engineering (DE) teamed up (once again) to present CAASE, the (now Virtual) Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering, on June 16-18, 2020!

CAASE20 brought together the leading visionaries, developers, and practitioners of CAE-related technologies in an open forum, unlike any other, to share experiences, discuss relevant trends, discover common themes, and explore future issues, including:
-What is the future for engineering analysis and simulation?
-Where will it lead us in the next decade?
-How can designers and engineers realize its full potential?
What are the business, technological, and human enablers that will take past successful developments to new levels in the next ten years?

Resource Abstract

Todays headlamps are important styling components for cars, especially for brand recognition, but are also increasingly getting more attention from a safety point of view with the emergence of new technologies, like LEDs, sensors, integrated cameras, and Lidars. With these new technologies all crammed into the headlamp, manufacturers face new thermal management challenges.



Current headlamp models have high geometrical complexity with many electronic components, where these models can include dynamic parts in the case of an adaptive curve light, or include sensors needed for autonomous driving. The thermal management analysis of these new headlamps are especially challenging, as all heat transfer mechanisms need to be included for accurate simulations. The electronic components may need to be investigated in detail, specifically, the combination of solar load and the released heat from the electronic components may impact deformation of plastic parts that may in turn affect shape and lighting performance of the headlamp. Consequently, comprehensive lighting studies demand advanced modeling capabilities and are perfectly suited for Multi(ple)-physics simulations that include electronics thermal, CFD, FEA and lighting analysis.



In this study, we are going to investigate a headlamp that presents deformation of parts due to thermal expansion, which in turn influences the performance of optical modules to meet lighting regulations. Specifically, we propose to use electronics thermal to conduct detailed PCB-level modeling, and map the properties into a comprehensive thermal simulation including radiation and solar load on the headlamp enclosure. The resulting temperature field will then be mapped to a structural simulation for deformation of some the lighting components. Finally, these deformed parts will be used in lighting simulations to analyze the affected optical performance of the headlamp. Here we will compare the lighting performance of the original and deformed/modified headlamp. We have seen that the Luminous Intensity can drastically change with deformed headlamp parts, and that the illumination pattern will be affected due to these deformations as well. Ultimately, these deformations will also affect pass/fail conditions of the headlamp per regulations.