Concurrent design of sheet metal forming product and process

An inverse finite element (FE) algorithm is used to develop a sheet forming process modeling module and numeric models are extracted out of the proces s modeling results. Both the representation schemes for numeric models and the empirical knowledge along with their integration into the knowledge bas e are discussed. To facilitate the definition of knowledge and the assertio n of facts and support the inference capability, a shell called "Concurrent Design Environment (CDE)" is developed Certainty factors for quality assur ance can be evaluated by using the concurrent design system which is aimed at achieving a compatible design of sheet product and forming process at th e preliminary design stage. Case studies are included to demonstrate the fe asibility of this proposed system.