Parameter Estimation and Uncertainty Quantification of a Subframe with Mass Loaded Bushings

Paper in proceeding, 2017

In the automotive industry components are often connected through rubber bushings. The bushingsʼ material properties are usually not well known. In computational models these properties are parametrised and their spread can be considerable. A good estimate of these parameters is important in various applications, including substructuring, and for uncertainty quantification of systems with connected components. This paper deals with the calibration of an industrial size finite element model of a car subframe with parametrised bushing models. Mass loading is used on the bushings to bring local bushing modes to a lower frequency region and impose a more realistic boundary condition in component testing. The model parameters can be calibrated in different ways. In this paper two approaches are considered. They are based on two test configurations, one with and one without mass loaded boundaries. In the first case only the bushing parameters are considered for the mass loaded boundary configuration. In the second case, consisting of two steps, the configuration without mass loaded boundaries is considered in which the bushing parameters are first fixed and other model parameters considered, and in the last step a subset of all parameters is considered. The calibration, validation and uncertainty quantification, using bootstrapping, have been performed using the open-source MATLAB tool FEMcali.