Press-Line Simulation in Stamping Process

The automotive industry is rapidly implementing computer simulation in every aspect of their processes mainly to decrease the time required to bring new models to market. Computer simulation can also be used to reduce the cost of vehicle development and manufacturing. A major portion of the manufacturing cost associated with automotive stamping lies in the process design, build and tryout of production dies and in automation of the transfer equipment. Press home-line tryout is largely a trial-and-error process relying heavily on the skills and experience of tool and die makers. To reduce this dependence on human skills and effort, press-line simulation can be effectively utilized to verify the design accuracy thereby reducing the changes needed to rework the production die/tool. The entire press-line with all its complete accessories can be modeled and checked for design errors similar to the try-out conducted in the production plant. This virtual environment can also potentially be used to optimize the press efficiency. dCADE(Stamping), a product of EDS has been utilized for simulating the press line operations. The capabilities of the simulation software as well as the future direction of the press line simulation in the automotive stamping industry are presented in this paper.