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Cracks on metallic components may appear due to manufacturing, handling, installation, repair, welding etc. and are controlled by quality documents. However, if cracks violate the limit defined in quality document, then either parts will be scraped or will need additional evaluation through detailed fracture mechanic’s approach. The initial size and shape of a crack, part geometry and loading, highly impacts the behavior of a crack’s growth and remaining useful life. Industry standard software like ANSYS, AFGROW, Franc3D, etc. offer the solution to estimate the stress intensity factor and crack growth rate. However, these software’s have their limitation and start showing the deviation for complex geometry and loading scenario.

Historically manufacturing variability has been considered as a noise factor due to limited insights about manufacturing history and its influence on part performance. With improvement in computational power and enhancements in commercial simulation tools, it is now feasible to study the influence of manufacturing process on product life in addition to manufacturability. This study demonstrates the concept of as manufactured part performance prediction utilizing forming simulation software to capture deformed geometry along with residual stresses and its integration to performance simulation tool using sheet drawing operation. Simulation predictions are verified and validated with available experimental data. This approach helps to visualize the variation in part performance with respect to manufacturing process change including process sequence, process parameters and tooling design change.