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Welding remains to be one of major manufacturing processes in the automotive industry. In addition to resistance welding, arc welding processes have recently received an increasing attention as some of the advanced designs of automotive structures are being introduced, such as hydro-formed frame structures. As such, it has become increasingly important that math-based design and manufacturing tools be developed to achieve concurrent design and welding process development in today's competitive environment. In this paper, some of the state of the art computational modeling techniques are first summarized. These modeling techniques can be used to establish welding procedure effects on weld quality, residual stresses, distortions, and more importantly, on structural integrity of the welded structures. The applications of some of the advanced analysis techniques are demonstrated by using a number of detailed case studies.

An important emerging technical area is computer-based modeling of the various manufacturing processes that are used in many diverse industries. These models are used to optimize manufacturing techniques to reduce fabrication costs and improve the service performance. One manufacturing process important in steel fabrication is welding. It can be a useful tool to aid in reducing fabrication costs and service durability by optimizing the weld process and is the subject of this paper.