Two Numerical Tools For Geometrical Deviation Management In Composite Assemblies: A Comparison

The present work compares two numerical tools to predict the geometrical deviations of an assembly constituted by thin laminates in composite material. The first one is based on a virtual representation of both the manufacturing and the assembling processes, able to generate the variability meta-model for each component to be used in a skin-based assembly. The second one estimates the sensitivity matrix that connects the components' variations to the assembly's variations in the method of influence coefficients (MIC). They were experimentally verified on a case study. The comparison underlined the critical issue of both the tools.