PAM-OPT™/PAM-SOLID™: Optimization of Transport Vehicle Crash and Safety Design and Forming Processes

Abstract Dynamic simulation solver codes are now extensively used by industry for the design verification of vehicle crashworthiness and for the process simulation of sheet metal forming. The logical next step is to use these by now proven codes for the optimization of the vehicle crash design and of metal forming processes. A step towards this goal has been taken by PSI, and an optimization code, PAM-OPT™, has been written for calling dynamic FE codes of the PAM-SOLID™ family in design and process optimization loops. The code interacts with the user via input, signalling and output files and it calls an interface that interacts with the FE solvers. The paper briefly outlines the properties and various flow charts of the optimizer, depending on single or multiple solvers used in the loop, single or parallel calls and fast solvers. Then the paper reports various applications of PAM-OPT™ in conjunction with the PAM-SFE™, PAM-CRASH™, PAM-SAFE™ and PAM-STAMP™ solvers. An outlook on how to replace the user-written interface with a general keyword-driven interface concludes the paper.