CAE methods have found increased application in automotive machining recently, due to advances in these methods and the need to reduce engineering lead time to meet accelerated product development cycles. Representative CAE methods include process simulation programs to compute cycle times and force histories, structural finite element methods to estimate distortion and accuracy, and finite element models of chip formation to predict chip characteristics and residual stresses in the machined layer. This talk provides a brief technical overview of typical programs, and reviews applications examples in which CAE methods were effective in reducing capital investment in CNC systems, designing fixtures for compliant aluminum parts with maximum access, solving tool breakage issues, and reducing trialand- error testing in process development. The application examples cover both new process design and the improvement of existing operations. |
22-23 October 2012 Pacengo del Garda 
