Real-Time Deformation of Thin Shell Components in Virtual Assembly Operations: Study of Procedures for Analysis and Validation

In the automotive industry, assembly line equipment represents one of the major costs to be considered during product-process development due to the complexity of assembly operations and their need of purchasing cutting-edge solutions capable of carrying them out. DMU (Digital Mock-Up) software may support components design and assembly lines development allowing simulations of the operations. Currently, real-time virtual prototyping and simulation involve exclusively components that could be modeled as rigid or 1D-deformable. For other components, especially non-metallic ones, mock-ups are realized exclusively through physical models. To increase DMU software benefits, it is necessary an increase of fidelity concerning the modeling of a larger set of materials (e.g. hyperelastic models) and 2D geometric large deformations, present in thin-wall and shell components. This capability becomes crucial in DMU of real-practice cases, allowing to simulate assembly paths through gaps that are inaccessible without deforming the component to be inserted. Elastic deformation during assemblies represents a high computational effort for 2D components that is not affordable yet in real time conditions. Defeaturing is a possible strategy to simplify components, lightening computational effort. Hence, a compromise between response speed and accuracy in the respect to real behavior is necessary. This paper reports feasibility analyses and developed procedures based on this set of simulations, helpful for the current development of a 2D-elastic module of a VR/AR software, IC.IDO (ESI). To do this a plastic wheel arch has been used as development case study. FE simulations and results are reported, using Hyperworks and IC.IDO environments, with comparisons.