Optimization of Manufacturing Tolerances on Sheet Metal Components in the Development Process

In an increasingly challenging environment of growing competition and stricter legal regulations, the concept of lightweight design gets more and more important for the automotive industry. Usually, the goals of lightweight tend to conflict with the robustness of the designs. The scattering of the geometry within the manufacturing tolerance leads to a divergence between the test bench results and the prediction from simulation. For an optimized lightweight design, this deviation will often lead to a violation of the requirements. In this case, the part has to be re-designed to improve its robustness, causing an additional time expense, higher costs and a higher weight.