Improvement of 3D-simulation models based on experiments

The accuracy of manufacturing machines and specially the products of automatic panel benders is continuously improving. Within the last ten years the permissible deviations of the bending angles have been reduced in the specification by 50%, from 1.0° to 0.5°. This accuracy is to be achieved from the first performed bend. In order to further improve and shorten the design process, a parameter identification is carried out based on measurements on the real machine. A good pre-adjustment and tuning of the developed digital twin with respect to the bending process of various sheet metals with a large variety of operating parameters has been derived. In this contribution it is shown how the computation results of the highly efficient 3D-FEM simulation models are matched with the real bending machine in order to derive further improvements.