Panel is an important component of keeping aerodynamic shape in the aircraft. To ensure the flight performance of aircraft

it is essential to improve the assembly accuracy of the panel’s boundary dimensions. However

the traditional study mainly focused on the deformation analysis of the rivets and rivet holes

and the effect of riveting process on the global deformation was seldom considered. In this paper

the panel’s automatic drilling and riveting was taken as the object of study

and a solution of acquiring deformation

namely “local-global” method

was proposed based on the single-rivet FE model. The solid elements are used in the adjacent regions of rivet hole

and the shell elements are used in the remaining regions of the panel. By means of the linking method of solid element and shell element

the “local-global” mapping model was established. Using this model

the complex stress-strain appearance around the rivet hole was transferred to the shell element in a relatively simple state by the solid element

which improved the computational efficiency. The numerical simulation of large panel riveting deformation was also realized. Finally

in order to minimize the maximum riveting deformation

the genetic algorithm was used to optimize the riveting sequence. And the result showed that the deformation has been effectively controlled.