Towards a Method for Early Evaluations of Sheet Metal Assemblies

During sheet metal assembly, part and process variations influence the final geometry of the assembly. Normally, the information needed to make realistic analysis of the final geometric variation is extensive and in the early stages of the development process still unknown. Tolerance analysis, as conducted in most industries today, is normally based on the assumption of rigid parts and is therefore not always valid for sheet metal assemblies. Lately, research on using FEA to predict the influence of flexibility has been reported on by some authors. However, FEA is still a timeconsuming activity for experts, requiring a lot of information.