ABSTRACT
The strict regulations on pollutant emissions are forcing automobile manufacturers to invest new resources in light-weight design. Thin wall hollow section casting is a solution for chassis and body in white that allows weight reduction and high performance at the same time. This paper focuses on a methodology that aims at generating the material cards employed by the Finite Element Method model of the casting. In this regard, tensile and shear samples have been extracted directly from the component to consider the effects of manufacturing processes on the mechanical properties. The samples have been tested to create and adjust the material cards that include failure model and mesh scaling function. Furthermore, a bending test of the component has been performed in order to eventually refining the material card. Finally, to assess the quality of the material cards a full-scale FE model has been done.
