Abstract
This paper presents General Motors do Brasils (GMB) approach for virtual structural durability design. The virtual design requirements for early development phases, the structural durability prediction and validation are herein presented. To meet these requirements GMB based its activities on the software named GMB-VPG (Virtual Proving Ground), developed by GMB to fulfill its needs. This tool and its methodology of integration between multibody simulation and fatigue damage calculation are then described, just like the life template concept. Finally, some real examples are shown in order to illustrate the capabilities of this methodology and the correlation with field results that can be achieved.