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A newly-proposed hydroforming design of front rail was evaluated for product feasibility. Hydroforming and associated prebending and preforming processes were designed with the assistance of CAE tool. Optimized processing parameters were selected and the entire manufacturing process was simulated using FEA software. Potential manufacturing issues were identified and product modification was suggested accordingly.

Advanced material modeling was conducted to describe the thermal-mechanical behavior of Boron Steel during hot stamping, a process in which blanks at 900 °C are formed and quenched between cold dies. Plastic deformation, thermal dilatation and phase transformation were incorporated in the constitutive model and a user-defined subroutine was developed to interface with LS-DYNA. Simulation was conducted on the hot stamping process of a door intrusion beam to gain insight into the physics of the process. Results showed significant influence of the thermal cycle on final product. It was also demonstrated that the program developed can be used as an early feasibility tool to determine baseline processing parameters and to detect potential defects in products without physical prototyping.