• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.150-157
• /
• 2013

Fiber metal laminates (FMLs) are layered materials comprised of thin metal sheets and fiber reinforced plastic (FRP). This paper presents the numerical study of the formability enhancement of FMLs composed of an aluminum alloy and self-reinforced polypropylene (SRPP) composite. In this study, a numerical simulation based on finite element (FE) modeling is proposed to evaluate the formability of FMLs using ABAQUS/Explicit. The FE model, which included a single layer of solid and shell elements to model the blank, used discrete layers of the solid element with a contact model and shell elements with a friction based model for the aluminum alloy-composite interface conditions. This method allowed the description of each layer of FMLs and was able to simulate the interaction between the layers. It is noted through this research that the proposed numerical simulation described properly the formability enhancement of the FMLs and the simulation results showed good agreement with experimental results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
• /
• v.24 no.5
• /
• pp.566-574
• /
• 2016

Fiber metal laminates, which are hybrid materials consisting of metal sheets and composite layers, have contributed to aerospace and automotive industries due to their reduced weight and improved damage tolerance characteristics. In this study, the impact performance of the laminates, which are comprised of a self-reinforced polypropylene and two aluminum sheets, and the pure aluminum alloy sheet material were investigated experimentally via numerical simulation. In order to compare the impact performance, the laminates and aluminum alloy were examined by assessing the impact force, energy time histories, and specific energy absorption. ABAQUS is a commercial software that is used to simulate the actual drop-weight tests. Based on this study, it is noted that the impact performance of the laminates was superior to that of the aluminum alloy. In addition, a good agreement between the experimental and numerical results can be achieved when the impact force and energy time histories from the experiments and the numerical simulations are compared.

• Composites Research
• /
• v.30 no.2
• /
• pp.158-164
• /
• 2017

The fiber metal laminate is a type of hybrid materials laminated thin metallic sheets with fiber reinforced plastic sheets. The laminate has been researched or applied in automotive and aerospace industries due to their outstanding impact absorbing performance in view of light weight aspect. Specially, the replacement of side-impact beam as the fiber reinforced plastic has been researched actively. The objective of this paper is the primitive investigation in the development of side-door impact beam using the fiber metal laminate. First, the three-point bending simulations were conducted to decide the shape of impact beam using the numerical analysis. Next, two cases impact beam (pure DP 980 and fiber metal laminate) were installed in the side-door, and then the bending tests (according to FMVSS 214S) were simulated using the numerical analysis. It is noted that the side-door impact beam can be replaced with the fiber metal laminate sufficiently based on the numerical analysis results.