Dynamic Analysis of Energy Absorbing Steering System for Driver Impacts

운전자 충돌에 의한 에너지 흡수식 스티어링 시스템의 동적 해석

Steering system is typically one of the vehicle parts that may injure an unrestrained driver in a frontal collision. Therefore, the engineers of vehicle safety parts researched the allowable injury criteria such as HIC(head injury criterion). chest acceleration and knee impact force. From their research, they recognized that development of energy absorbing steering system was necessary to protect the driver. Energy absorbing parts of steering system consist of shear capsule, ball sleeve and shaft assembly. We performed the modelling and dynamic analysis of the energy absorbing steering column with the unrestrained driver model. The conclusions of this study are as follows. 1) The variation of column angle has an important effects on the dynamic responses of steering system and driver behavior. 2) The energy absorbing steering system satisfies the safety criterion of FMVSS 203, 208, but not the safety criterion of FMVSS 204.