Objective
The principal objective is to create sound basis for a fully CAD integrated industrial numerical simulation, design and analysis code, and a methodology which permits more cost effective and faster execution optimization and rational tooling design for complete industrial sheet metal forming processes.
The principal aim of this research is to create a sound basis for a fully computer aided design (CAD) integrated industrial numerical simulation, design and analysis code, and a methodology which permits more cost effective and faster execution, optimisation and rational tooling design for complete industrial sheet metal forming processes.
The major achievements to date include:
the characterisation of sheet metal material with respect to the most relevant physical phenomenon encountered in sheet metal forming (anisotropic, plasticity, friction, etc);
the development of a simulation code (PAM STAMP) capable of simulating sheet metal forming processes;
the validation of the code versus experiments carried out by the industrial partner or benchmark cases.
These results are finding new areas of application such as hydroforming, thermoforming, stamping on elastomeric cushions, thick sheets, extrusion and rolling, where new products are currently available.
The new integrated industrial cost and delay saving stamping methodology will be applied directly to the urgent stamping problems of the European car industry which must react to the declared goal of the Japanese car industry to reduce the new car model design cycle from presently more than four to two years, or less.
First, the complete physical phenomena encountered in sheet metal stamping are studied, tested and integrated into the code, which is verified with basic laboratory tests. Next the code is calibrated on non trivial industrial stamping examples with well identified stamping problems. Then the code is validated with real life car industry stamping examples. Finally the code is integrated into the car industry CAD environment, the resulting basic methodology and prototype code can now be adapted to problems of general stamping industry.