L'objet du présent travail est la modélisation, par simulation numérique, de la tenue mécanique de flasques de sièges automobile obtenus par semi-découpe de tôle d'acier à haute limite élastique. Des essais de compression, de traction et de cisaillement sont mis en place pour étudier l'anisotropie plastique, l'écrouissage, l'endommagement et la rupture. Des essais non proportionnels de cisaillement suivi de traction et de semi-découpe suivie de poinçonnement permettent d'investiguer l'effet de prédéformations, à bas taux de triaxialité des contraintes, sur le comportement du matériau à nouveau sollicité à un taux de triaxialité des contraintes plus élevé. Basé sur les travaux de Xue et Wierzbicki, un critère de rupture permettant de rendre compte des observations expérimentales est proposé et comparé à un modèle d'endommagement de Lemaitre. Le critère de rupture proposé est implanté dans deux logiciels de calcul par éléments finis : le logiciel Forge® dédié à la simulation de la mise en forme et le logiciel LS-Dyna® dédié à la simulation de crash. Dans un premier temps, la mise en forme par semi-découpe est simulée avec Forge®. Dans un second temps, les champs de variables d'état sont transportés du maillage résultat obtenu avec Forge®, vers le maillage d'entrée pour LS-Dyna®. Ensuite les calculs de tenue mécanique sont réalisés avec LS-Dyna®. Les résultats de calculs de tenue mécanique sont enfin comparés à des résultats expérimentaux. Ces résultats expérimentaux sont des essais de mise en forme par semi-découpe suivis d'essais d'arrachement qui reproduisent, en laboratoire, les sollicitations observées sur les pièces industrielles. / The purpose of this work is to model by digital simulation the mechanical strength of automotive seat flanges obtained by half-blanking of high yield strength steel sheets. Compression, tensile and shear tests are done in order to investigate plastic anisotropy, strain hardening, ductile damage and fracture. Non-proportional tests of shear followed by traction and of half-blanking followed by punching allow investigating the effect of predeformations at low stress triaxiality, on the behavior of the material loaded again at higher stress triaxiality. Based on the work of Xue and Wierzbicki, a fracture criterion that allows taking into account the experimental observations is proposed and compared to a Lemaitre damage model. The proposed fracture criterion is implemented in two finite element software programms: Forge®, dedicated to forming simulation and LS-Dyna®, dedicated to crash simulation. In a first step, forming by half-blanking is simulated with Forge®. In a second step, state variable fields are mapped from outcome mesh from Forge® to input mesh for LS-Dyna®. Then mechanical strength computations are performed using LS-Dyna®. Finally the mechanical strength computation results are compared to experimental results. These experimental results are forming tests by half-blanking followed by wrenching tests. These tests reproduce in the laboratory loading observed on industrial parts.

This thesis, gathering four papers, concerns the enhancement in understanding and modelling of the audible dynamic stiffness of vibration rubber isolators including experimental measurements. Paper A studies the performances of three different types of vibration isolator using an indirect measurement technique to estimate the blocked dynamic transfer stiffness of each specimen. The measurements are performed over a wide audible frequency range of 200 to 1000 Hz in a specially designed test rig enabling the investigation of arbitrary preload influences. Paper B addresses the modelling of the audible-frequency stiffness of the rubber conical mount experimentally appraised in Paper A accounting for preload effects. The model is based on a simpliflied waveguide approach approximating the nonlinearities attributed to the predeformations by adopting shape factor considerations. The carbon black filled rubber is assumed incompressible, displaying a viscoelastic behavior based on a fractional derivative Kelvin-Voigt model efficiently reducing the number of required material parameters. In Paper C the focus is on the axial dynamic stiffness modelling of an arbitrary long rubber bushing within the audible frequency range. The problems of simultaneously satisfying the locally non-mixed boundary conditions at the radial and end surfaces are solved by adopting a waveguide approach, using the dispersion relation for axially symmetric waves in thick-walled infinite plates, while fulfilling the radial boundary conditions by mode-matching. The results obtained are successfully compared with simpliflied models but display discrepancies when increasing the diameter-to-length ratios since the influence of higher order modes and dispersion augments. Paper D develops an effective waveguide model for a pre-compressed cylindrical vibration isolator within the audible frequency domain at arbitrary compressions. The original, mathematically arduous problem of simultaneously modelling the preload and frequency dependence is solved by applying a novel transformation of the pre-strained isolator into a globally equivalent homogeneous and isotropic configuration enabling the straightforward application of a waveguide model to satisfy the boundary conditions. The results obtained present good agreement with the non-linear finite element results for a wide frequency range of 20 to 2000 Hz at different preloads. / QC 20101001