Method and computer system for characterizing a sheet metal part

A method for generating reference data for characterizing a sheet metal part, the method comprising the steps of:

• a) providing forming operation result data, the forming operation result data comprising at least a geometry of a simulated sheet metal part after the forming operation;
• b) a postprocessor computing, from a forming operation result data, a simulated material flow metric, the simulated material flow metric being representative of the geometry of the simulated sheet metal part after the forming operation;
• c) storing, in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, the simulated material flow metric and a forming operation data set, the forming operation data set comprising at least one of the process parameters and the forming operation result data;
• d) repeating the preceding steps several times with different forming operation result data and storing, in a computer readable data storage device, in each case the forming operation data set and the associated simulated material flow metric, the entirety of forming operation data sets and associated simulated material flow metrics constituting a simulation data set;
• e) computing and storing, in the computer readable data storage device, mapping information that defines a relationship between material flow metrics and forming operation data sets and
• outputting, on a display device or on an actual sheet metal part, a visual representation of data of at least one of the forming operation data sets or putting a human or machine readable marking on the actual sheet metal part representative of at least one of the forming operation data sets.