Title: The optimal design of sheet metal forming processes: application to the clinching of thin sheets

Authors: Nadhir Lebaal; Marc Oudjene; Sébastien Roth

Addresses: Laboratoire de Mécatronique 3M, Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbeliard, 90010 Belfort Cedex, France. ' Laboratoire d'Etudes et de Recherche sur le Matériau Bois (LERMAB), Nancy-Université, 27 rue Philippe Séguin, BP 1041, 88051 Epinal Cedex, France. ' Laboratoire de Mécatronique 3M, Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbeliard, 90010 Belfort Cedex, France

Abstract: The production of high-strength clinched joints is the ultimate goal of the manufacturing industry. The determination of optimum tool shapes in the clinch forming process is needed to achieve the required high strength of clinched joints. The design of the tools (punch and die) is crucial since the strength of the clinched joints is closely related to the tools geometry. To increase the strength of clinched joints, an optimisation procedure using the response surface methodology, based on an adaptive moving target zone, is presented. The cost function studied here is defined in terms of the maximum value of the tensile force computed during the simulation of the sheets separation. Limitations on the geometrical parameters due to feasibility issues are also taken into account. The kriging interpolation is used to provide an approximation to the optimisation problem and to build the response surfaces.

Keywords: FEM; finite element method; clinching process; design of experiments; DOE; optimisation; RSM; response surface methodology; SQP algorithm; sheet metal forming; kriging interpolation; optimal design; thin sheets; clinched joints.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2012.046041

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2012 Vol.43 No.2, pp.110 - 116

Published online: 27 Mar 2012 *

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