Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design TechnologyWith ever shorter product cycles and increasing demands on components, the challenge in the automotive industry, especially in body and frame construction, is to be able to process new steel materials safely. We are continuously developing resistance spot welding of steel and aluminum sheets with a thickness of around three millimeters. The need for virtual validation is greater than ever. The simulation of welding processes in car body construction makes it possible to optimize processes without using expensive preproduction parts and to quickly calculate variants that could only be tested experimentally at great expense.