• 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.

• 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.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.351-358
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• 2017

Due to the increasing competition, automotive manufacturers have to manufacture highly safe and light vehicles. The parts which make up the body of the vehicle and absorb the energy in case of a crash, are usually manufactured with sheet metal forming methods such as deep drawing, bending, trimming and spinning. The part may get thinner, thicker, folded, teared, wrinkled and spring back based on the manufacturing conditions during manufacturing and the type of application methods. Transferring these effects which originate from the forming process to the crash simulations that are performed for vehicle safety simulations, makes accurate and reliable results possible. As a part of this study, firstly, the one-step and incremental sheet metal forming analysis (deep drawing + trimming + spring back) of vehicle front bumper beam and crash boxes were conducted. Then, crash performances for cases with and without the effects of sheet metal forming were assessed in the crash analysis of vehicle front bumper beam and crash box. It was detected that the parts absorbed 12.89% more energy in total in cases where the effect of the forming process was included. It was revealed that forming history has a significant effect on the crash performance of the vehicle parts.

• 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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• 2007.05a
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• pp.1564-1570
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• 2007

There are normally two types of the energy absorbers used in the crashworthiness of trains. The first is a structure type, which mainly used in not only the primary structures of the train but also the crash energy absorbers at the accident. The second is a module type, which just absorbs the crash energy independent of the primary structures and attached to the structures of the train. The expansion and inversion tube are widely used as the module type crash energy absorbers, especially in the train. The tubes should not be buckled under the load acting on the end of the tube in longitudinal direction during absorbing the crash energy. The buckling stability of the tubes is affected by the boundary conditions, thickness and length of tube. In this study, the effects of the length and thickness of the tubes on the buckling load are studied by using the ABAQUS, a commercial finite element analysis program, and then presents the guideline to design the tube. The analysis processes to compute the buckling load consist of a linear buckling analysis and a nonlinear post-buckling analysis. The buckling modes are evaluated by the linear buckling analysis, as using these modes, the buckling loads are computed by the nonlinear post-buckling analysis.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.774-779
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• 2007

The crash energy absorbers used in the trains normally are classified into two types. The first is the structure type, which mainly used in not only the primary structure of train but also the crash energy absorbers at the critical accidents. The second is the module type, which just absorbs the crash energy independently and attached onto the structures of the trains. The expansion tube is widely used as the module type of the crash energy absorbers, especially in the trains that have a heavy mass. Since the crash energy is absorbed by means of expanding the tube in the radial direction, the features of the expansion tube have the uniform load during the compression. As the uniform load remains in sudden impact, the expansion tube is effective to decrease acceleration of passengers when the train accident occur. The buckling instability of the expansion tubes is affected by the boundary conditions, thickness and length of tube. In this study, the effects of the length and thickness of the expansion tubes under the arbitrary load on the buckling are studied using the ABAQUS/standard and ABAQUS/explicit, a commercial finite element analysis program, and then presents the guideline to design the expansion tubes. The analysis processes to compute the buckling load consist of the linear buckling analysis and the nonlinear post-buckling analysis. To analysis the nonlinear post-buckling analysis, the geometry imperfections are introduced by applying the linear buckling modes to nonlinear post-buckling analysis.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.23-30
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• 2009

Crash cushions are protective devices that prevent errant vehicles from impacting on fixed objects. This function is accomplished by gradually decelerating a vehicle to a safe stop in a relatively short distance. Commonly used crash cushions generally employ one of two concepts to accomplish this function. The first concept involves the absorption of the kinetic energy of a moving vehicle by crushable or plastically deformable materials and the other one involves the transfer of the momentum of a moving vehicle to an expendable mass of material located in the vehicle's path. Crash cushions using the first concept are generally referred to as compression crash cushions and crash cushions using the other concept are generally referred to as inertial crash cushion. The objective of this research is the development of a compression-type crash cushion by employing the two concepts simultaneously. To minimize the number of full-scale crash tests for the development of the crash cushion, preliminary design guide considering inertial and frictional energy absorption was constructed and computer simulation was performed. LS-DYNA program, which is most widely used to analyze roadside safety features, was used for the computer simulation. The developed crash cushion satisfied the safety evaluation criteria for various impact conditions of CC2 performance level in the Korean design guide.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.1581-1586
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• 2009

The CEM (Crash Energy Management) concept is getting important in rail vehicle design to minimize Injury on passengers and drivers on crash event. In this paper, the accuracy of the FEA analysis result was verified through the crush test on the front part of a non-CEM based carbody. Using the verified FEA analysis method, the energy absorbing capability of the CEM based carbody was estimated.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.106-113
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• 2008

The goal of crashworthiness is an optimized vehicle structure that can absorb the crash energy by controlled vehicle deformations while maintaining adequate space so that the residual crash energy can be managed by the restraint systems to minimize crash loads transfer to the vehicle occupants. Front side assembly is one of the most important energy absorbing components in relating to the crashworthiness design of vehicle. The structure and shape of the front side assemblies are different depending on auto-makers and size of vehicles. Thus, it is not easy to grab an insight on designer's intention when you glance at a new front side member without experiences. In this paper, we have performed the explicit nonlinear dynamic finite element analysis on the front side assembly of a passenger car to investigate the effect of thickness distribution of the front side assembly on the collapse shape, which is important in the aspect of controlling deformation to maintain adequate space, from the viewpoint of reverse engineering. To do this, we have performed crash FE analysis for the assembly by varying the thickness distribution of the assembly.