FE-Simulation Of Hemming In The Automotive Industry

This paper summarizes and presents the most important results from a research project on FE simulation of hemming carried out at Volvo Cars Body Components and Chalmers University of Technology. In the automotive industry, hemming is used to join two sheet metal panels by bending the flange of the outer panel over the inner one. The final goal of the project was to simulate all of the hemming steps of production parts. In order to make three-dimensional simulations of hemming possible within reasonable simulation times, it is necessary to use shell elements and not solid elements. On the other hand, the radius of curvature of the outer part in the folded area is very small, normally of the same order of magnitude as the sheet thickness. This fact raises the question if shell elements are applicable in FE simulation of hemming. One part of the project was therefore a thorough investigation of the order of magnitude of the errors resulting from the use of shell elements in FE simulation of hemming. Another part of the project was devoted to three-dimensional simulations of the hemming of an automotive hood. The influence on the roll-in from several parameters, such as shell element formulation, adhesives, and anisotropy was studied. Finally, results from a forming simulation were also mapped to the flanging and hemming models in order to study the influence from the stamping of the outer panel on the roll-in