• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.101-107
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• 2004

Recently the objective of vehicle design was focused on the crash safety and the energy saving. For the energy saving vehicle structures must be light weight, but for the crash safety some energy absorbing elements must be added. In this paper hybrid structure which consists of a steel and a FRP was studied on the energy absorption characteristics under the impact load by finite element method. Test results of the other researchers were compared with that of computer simulation on this simple hybrid structure. Side rail of vehicle front structure was replaced with hybrid materials for the application of the vehicle structure. 35mph frontal crash simulation was performed with hybrid structure and with conventional steel structure. By the adoption of hybrid structure, the improvement of energy absorption characteristics and reduction of weight was observed under the frontal crash simulation.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.182-188
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• 2008

Crash box is one of the most important automotive parts for crash energy absorption and is equipped at the front end of the front side member. The specific characteristics of aluminum alloys offer the possibility to design cost-effective lightweight structures with high stiffness and excellent crash energy absorption potential. This study deals with crashworthiness of aluminum crash box for an auto-body with the various types of cross section. For aluminum alloys, A17003-T7 and A17003-T5, the dynamic tensile test was carried out to apply for crash analysis at the range of strain from 0.003/sec to 200/sec. The crash analysis and the crash test were carried out for three cross sections of rectangle, hexagon and octagon. The analysis results show that the octagon cross section shape with A17003-T5 has higher crashworthiness than other cross section shapes. The effect of rib shapes in the cross section is important factor in crash analysis. Finally, new configuration of crash box with high crash energy absorption was suggested.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.179-194
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• 2018

Reliable and accurate method of computationally aided design processes of advanced thin walled structures in automotive industries are much essential for the efficient usage of smart materials, that possess higher energy absorption in dynamic compression loading. In this paper, most versatile components i.e., thin walled crash tubes with different geometrical profiles are introduced in view of mitigating the impact of varying cross section in crash behavior and energy absorption characteristics. Apart from the geometrical parameters such as length, diameter and thickness, the non-dimensionalized parameters of average forces which control the plastic bending moment for varying thickness has explored in view of quantifying its impact on the crashworthiness of the structure. The explicit finite element code ABAQUS is utilized to conduct the numerical studies to examine the effect of parametric modifications in crash behavior and energy absorption. Also the simulation results are experimentally validated. It is evident that the circular cross-sectional tubes are preferable as high collision impact shock absorbers due to their ability in withstanding axial and oblique impact loads effectively. Furthermore, the specific energy absorption (SEA), crash force efficiency (CFE), plastic bending moment, peak force responses and its impact for optimally tailoring a design to cater the crashworthiness requirements are investigated. The primary outcome of the study is to provide sufficient information on circular tubes for the use of energy absorbers where impact oblique loading is expected.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.617-632
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• 2011

A concept of crash energy absorbing (CEA) lattice structure for an inflatable morphing vehicle body (Lee et al. 2008) has been investigated as a method of providing rigidity and energy absorption capability during a vehicular collision (Lee et al. 2007). A modified analytical model for the CEA lattice structure design is described in this paper. The modification of the analytic model was made with a stiffness approach for the elastic region and updated plastic limit analysis with a pure plastic bending deformation concept and amended elongation factors for the plastic region. The proposed CEA structure is composed of a morphing lattice structure with movable thin-walled members for morphing purposes, members that will be locked in designated positions either before or during the crash. What will be described here is how to model the CEA structure analytically based on the energy absorbed by the CEA structure.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.399-407
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• 2022

Energy absorption facilities installed on roads should follow the performance standards of the real-car crash test of 'Installation and Maintenance Guidelines for Roadside Safety Facilities'. However, due to different installation conditions, such as differing structure widths on roads, some energy absorption facilities do not provide adequate performance. In order to apply varied environments on roads, an energy absorption structure was designed in this study with 150 mm height and four layers of W-shape guardrail at 200 mm intervals, and the performance was verified using LS-DYNA computer simulation. Through a real-car crash test, the performance of the facility designed by LS-DYNA was tested and was found to meet the performance of the CC2 category for crash cushions. The conclusion of the comparison demonstrates that the simulation and the real-car crash tests are both significant.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.70 no.2
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• pp.153-168
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• 2019

In this paper, energy absorption characteristics of circular windowed tubes with different section shapes (circular, ellipse, square, hexagon, polygon and pentagon) are investigated numerically and experimentally. The tube possesses the same material, thickness, height, volume and average cross sectional area which are subjected under axial and oblique quasi-static loading conditions. Numerical model was constructed with FE code ABAQUS/Explicit, the obtained outcome of simulation is in good matching with the experimental data. The energy absorbed, specific energy absorption, crash force efficiency, peak and mean loads along with the collapse modes with their initiation point of simple and windowed tubes were evaluated. The technique for order of preference by similarity ideal solution (TOPSIS) approach was employed for assessing their overall crushing performances. The obtained results confirm that efficacy of crash force indicators have improved by introducing windows and tubes with pentagonal and circular windows achieves the maximum ranking about 0.528 and 0.517, it clearly reveals the above are best window shapes.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.11
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• pp.1179-1185
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• 2013

In this study, the design optimization of the automotive side member is performed to maximize the crash energy absorption efficiency per unit weight. Design parameters which seriously influence on the frontal crash performance are selected through the sensitivity analysis using the Plackett-Burman design method. And also the design variables, which are determined from the sensitivity analysis, are optimized by two methods. One is conventional approximate optimization method which uses the statistical design of experiments (DOE) and response surface method (RSM). The other is a methodology derived from previous work by the authors, which is called sequential design of experiments (SDOE), to reduce a trial and error procedure and to find an appropriate condition for using micro-genetic algorithm. The proposed optimization technique shows that the automotive side member structure can be designed considering the frontal crash performance.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.10
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• pp.1155-1162
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the bead shape on the crash performance of an aluminum crash box under a low-velocity impact condition. The initial peak load and impact energy absorption of a crash box with three types of bead shapes-edge concave, surface convex, and surface concave type-were studied through an FE analysis and an experiment. In addition, the effects of the bead shapes on the crash performance of the crash box were verified through a low-velocity-impact test with a front side member assembled with an aluminum crash box. The initial peak load of the surface-concave-type crash box was reduced by the bead, and therefore, deformation of the front side member at initial contact could be prevented. Furthermore, there was no deformation of the front side member after the impact test because the crash box with a surface-concave-type bead absorbed all the impact energy.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 1998.05a
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• pp.377-384
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• 1998

The crushable front part of the conventional TGV is composed of 3 energy absorption zones; retractable coupler, protective headstock and honeycomb structure. This frontal part must absorb about 80% of the energy that should be done in a cra shworthy design. The conventional TGV can absorb 2MJ impact energy by the frontal end, but 5MJ is the design target for energy absorption in the next generation TGV. To accomplish this design goal, a new concept of design is necessary for energy absorbing components. In this paper, the design concept of the tube expansion energy absorber will be proposed and analyzed. The crash analysis of the energy absorber are performed by comparing the value of the theoretical equation wi th the simulation calculated from the commercial nonlinear FE-Code ‘PAM-CRASH’ S/W.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.65-73
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• 2013

PURPOSES: This paper presents the results of computer simulations of roadside safety barrier, called by safety roller guardrail, consisting of rotational roller, rotation control plate, post and subsidiary members. The rotation roller and rotation control plate are made by EVA(ethylene vinyl acetate), and PE(polyester), respectively. METHODS: The occupant risk analysis has been carried out under vehicle crash condition for high containment level of SB-4 for the purpose of local road. Simulations are performed with the finite element code LS/DYNA-3D. RESULTS: The numerical results obtained by LS/DYNA-3D software from the viewpoints of vehicle stability, vehicle trajectory, occupant risk, etc. CONCLUSIONS: It is noted that not only impact severity is drastically reduced but also vehicle trajectory is improved due to the characteristics of energy absorption and rotation pattern of EVA rollers connected by control plates.