Consistent Damage Modelling in the Process Chain of Forming to Crashworthiness Simulations

Increasing crashworthiness requirements, together with the need of substantial weight reduction, are pushing the use of high strength steel grades in automotive car body structures. For being able to provide a reliable prediction of crash performance, methods to predict crack formation in structural parts have to be improved. To ensure this, a pre-damage of sheet metal parts, manufactured by means of deep-drawing processes, has to be taken into account. A new damage model for use both in forming and crashworthiness simulations is presented. Differences to existing damage models are pointed out, and calculations on a demonstrator part are shown.