Artigo Completo:

CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) tools are very widely used in the automotive industry. In fact, their use has enabled the automakers to reduce product development cost and time while improving the safety, comfort, and durability of the vehicles they produce. The predictive capability of CAE tools has progressed to the point where much of the design verification is now done using computer simulations rather than physical prototype testing. Even though there have been many advances in CAE, and it is widely used in the engineering field, physical testing is still used as a final confirmation for subsystems due to the fact that CAE cannot predict all variables in complex assemblies. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_engineering) During the evaluation of some assembly process, sometimes it is not possible to have enough or even representative samples that can be used on a Design of Experiments (DOE). In these cases, simulations can be performed to determine qualitative influence and interactions between several factors. This paper aims to propose a simulation way to evaluate the insertion assembly process of a PA11 tube in a fir tree hydraulic port and also the main design factors that could influence on this process.