Patent ID: 7330805

Claim:
A bending durability prediction method of predicting a bending durability of a plurality of wires laid at a predetermined bend, and of a bend protection member attached at the bend to protect the plurality of wires, by using an infinite element method, the bending durability prediction method comprising: a setup step of setting up the plurality of wires, the bend protection member, an atmosphere temperature, pre-bending initial shapes for the wires and the bend protection member and final bent shapes for the wires and the bend protection member; an infinite element model preparation step of preparing infinite element models for the plurality of wires and the bend protection member; a stress calculation step of calculating stress, for each of infinite elements of the infinite element models, produced by bending the infinite elements from the initial shape to the final bent shape; a maximum stress search step of searching, among the stresses obtained at the stress calculation step, for the maximum stress for each of the plurality of wires and the bend protection member; a prediction function acquisition step of obtaining prediction functions for the wires and the bend protection member at the atmosphere temperature setup at the setup step; a predicting step of referring to the prediction functions obtained at the prediction function acquisition step, obtaining numbers of bendings for endurance which correspond to the maximum stresses for the wires and the bend protection member, and identifying the smallest number of bendings for endurance; and an output step of outputting the smallest number of bendings obtained at the predicting step.