Robustness analysis of a car windscreen using response surface techniques

This paper addresses the robustness analysis of modal characteristics of an undamped FE windscreen model subjected to geometrical variability. The studied acoustic windscreen is a sandwich structure composed of five different layers. Assuming the thickness of these layers are affected by irreducible uncertainty, this research aims to investigate the effect such uncertainty has on the eigenvalues and eigenvectors dispersion corresponding to different nominal configurations. The analysis is carried out via response surface methodology coupled with Monte Carlo simulation. Response surface methodology is in charge of building meta-models, which approximate both natural frequencies and mode shapes. Once the response surface approximations are constructed, Monte Carlo simulations can be performed using the meta-models to quickly propagate the input parameters variability. Finally, the analysis of the Monte Carlo outputs allows one to infer the robustness of the dynamic response of the system. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.