Efficient planning and numerical analysis of industrial hemming processes.

Hemming is a forming operation used in the automotive industry to join inner and outer components during the assembly of closures. These are typically opening parts of the body-in-white with additional requirements to their visual appearance. A suitable production concept of hemming operation which satisfies quality, capacity and cost requirements is determined during hemming planning activities. A digital tool to facilitate these activities and minimize the amount of trial and error iterations in try-out phase is presented in this paper. This tool can be used to define process plan, active tool surfaces and suitable process parameters for both die hemming and roll hemming operations. In case of early feasibility studies, when the die layout of the drawing operation is still not available, 3D part geometry is used directly to develop the concept of hemming process. Advanced validation studies, aimed at process optimization and controlling defects associated with hemming, can be based on complete simulation of all forming operations. Validation and analysis of developed concepts of hemming operation is done using the standard AutoForm-Incremental solver. Submesh strategy and special algorithm for contact description between inner and outer parts were implemented to ensure that accurate simulation results can be obtained within reasonable calculation time. Performance of the new software tool for hemming planning and accuracy of simulation results are demonstrated using several simple benchmarks and a real industrial part. It is shown that the new software tool can help to secure the efficient production launch by providing adequate support in try-out phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]