Decomposing Deviations Of Scanned Surfaces Of Sheet Metal Assemblies

We present a finite-element-based approach to support quality assurance for assembly processes of non-rigid sheet metal parts in the automotive and aerospace industries. These parts have adjustable mechanical bound-aries, making it possible to compensate geometrical deviations caused by the production process of components. Every part produced must be adjusted individually. Determining what boundaries to adjust to and in what di-rection is challenging and requires experience. Our goal was to identify sources of measured surface deviations after part assembly and provide valuable information to the quality assurance engineer. We solve the corre-sponding parameter estimation problem via a least-squares approach. From the estimated parameter states that led to measured deviations, additional visualizations are calculated to support the inspection engineer when deriving countermeasures.