Abstract
Proper door effort, required force to open or close a vehicle door, is an essential door design factor for the safety of passengers and pedestrians. Section shape of the door checker arm is the most influential design parameter for achieving a door effort design target. In this research. an analysis procedure to predict door effort using a simplified plane strain finite element model wes investigated for two passenger cars, for which mechanism of checker systems were: different. The variation of checker arm force to be required during moving on arm in opening and closing direction was estimated through analysis, and the result was transformed to the door effort with respect to door opening angle by considering door characteristics. Also, the self·closing force due to door weight was theoretically calculated and added to the door effort from checker arm force. Finally the estimated results of door effort were compared with test results.