A Study on The Structure and Safety of Aluminum Intensive Vehicle

알루미늄 초경량 차체의 구조강성 및 안전도향상에 관한 연구

Due to environmental problem for reduction in fuel consumption, vehicle emission and etc., many automotive makers are trying to reduce the weight of the vehicle. The most effective way to reduce the weight of vehicle is to use lighter materials, aluminum, plastics. Aluminum Space Frame has many advantages in weight reduction, body stiffness, ease of model change and so on. So, most of automotive manufacturers are attempting to develope Aluminum Space Frame body. For these reasons, we have developed Aluminum Intensive Vehicle based on steel monocoque body with Hyundai Motor Company. We achieved about 30% weight reduction, the stiffness of our model was higher than that of conventional steel monocoque body. In this paper, with optimization using FEM analysis, we could get more weight reduction and body stiffness increase. In the long run, we analyzed by means of simulation using PAM-CRASH to evaluate crush and crash characteristic of Aluminum Intensive Vehicle in comparison to steel monocoque automotive.