Wire Crimp Joint

Advanced Simulation and Consulting Services

The design of a crimp joint in an automobile must be robust because most modern cars contain thousands of these joints. The terminals are inexpensive to make, and the joints are easy and inexpensive to assemble. No solder, welding, or other high-temperature method is needed; instead, the parts are simply pressed together mechanically under high pressure. However, these joints must also survive and remain useable for many years in harsh high- and low-temperature environments with potential high humidity, moisture, and vibration. It is challenging, therefore, to design a crimp joint that will provide longevity given the wide variation in tooling and parts during manufacturing.

SIMULIA service engineers have extensive experience performing the type of sophisticated nonlinear analysis required for this type of problem. In the example shown below, the simulation was performed with Abaqus/Explicit; the bottom two figures show the excellent correlation obtained between the experimental and Abaqus-predicted results.