Virtual prototyping of lightweight designs made with cold and hot formed tailored solutions

Tailored hot and cold formed solutions are one key to the lightweight construction challenges of the future. Only tailored solutions allow the combination of soft and hard zones for the best possible crash performance and minimum weight. The safety cage of future vehicles may completely be designed with hot formed components. In order to achieve the desired properties of the component, a heat treatment operation is necessary, and it comprises a significant part of the hot forming process. This poses additional challenges to the automotive industry as the heat treatment process is a function of many parameters and depends strongly on the forming process. In addition, only perfectly heat-treated parts will fulfill specifications.

Virtual Prototyping makes sure that component manufacturing and assembly processes yield the designed tolerances and crash performance. ESI GROUP aims at providing all necessary tools for virtual prototyping of lightweight constructions designed and assembled with tailored solutions, specifically hot forming. This paper outlines what is needed for realistic virtual prototyping, and the status of the simulation solution. Validated realistic engineering examples are used to illustrate the capabilities in the field of virtual die design, forming, quenching, cooling channel engineering, assembly, and product performance.