Author(s)

J. El-Sayed, H. Kim & R. Frutiger

Abstract

During early design phases of automotive body structures a fast reliable means for evaluating the cross section can be very helpful in speeding up the design and development process. In this paper a study for the plane strain a assumption as an approach to formability simulation of automotive body structural sections in the early design stage of vehicle development process is presented. Plane strain approach is investigated for its applicability and accuracy in assessing formability by comparing the analytical results with actual measured results of automotive body side panel. The plane strain approach was tried based on the fact that for a certain section location of a stamped panel, the minor strains are relatively small and negligible compared to the major strains. The state of plane strain can be induced mainly through symmetry and applied boundary conditions. This approach can be both cost effective and time saving for analyzing sheet metal formability in early vehicle development stage, since only few sections of the entire panel need be analyzed. To demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the approach the analytical results of the commercial Finite Element Analysis software packages AUTOFORM2.1 andDYNA2Dare used in comparison with the results from actual measurements.

Keywords