To meet the increasingly high NVH consumer and product requirements, it is necessary to obtain maximum dynamic performance of the vehicle structure. For such superior properties, e.g. strength, stiffness, and weight, there are several methodologies, such as parameter optimization (useful for fine adjustments), topology optimization (limited by manufacturing processes), and shape optimization of structural plates.
Among the shape optimization methods, the method of embossed patterns allows large gains in structural stiffness as a result of imposing small deformations in the shape of the sheet metal. However, the method has limited applicability because it depends on weighting factors whose choice criterion is an open problem, with no closed solution, depending on methodologies such as the DoE (Design of Experiments) for its definition.
The present work further investigates the embossed pattern method under controlled conditions, by using a definition of the weighting criterion for the parameters together with an optimization procedure. The numerical results show the feasibility of finding appropriated (optimized) weighting factors for deforming the sheet metal, thus resulting in bended sheet metals with desired dynamic properties. The methodology proves to be of great utility in industry, especially in the NVH area.