Dent resistance is one of the major requirements for automotive body panel design. It depends on material strength, thickness, panel geometry/shape and outer and inner panel assembling. Due to the complexity of the problem, the verification of dent resistance of body panels is often done after the panels are formed and assembled. In this paper, a computer simulation technique was developed for dent resistance predictions, which can potentially be used in early design stages before panels are produced. Simulation techniques are discussed using explicit finite element method (FEA) for forming simulation and implicit FEA for denting simulation. A lab stretch dome panel is used to demonstrate the feasibility of computer simulation for dent resistance prediction. The stretch dome panel, with double curvature geometry, is formed to 2% biaxial strain and then subjected to several incremental static loads until 0.2 mm dent depth is reached. Comparison between simulation and experiment shows that a reasonable prediction for dent resistance can be obtained by computer simulations.
