Crash Analysis and Size Optimization of a Vehicle’s Front Bumper System

Year 2021, Volume: 5 Issue: 3, 184 - 191, 30.09.2021

Muhammed Talha Aşkar , Kemal Ermiş

https://doi.org/10.30939/ijastech..930944

Cited By: 3

Abstract

Bumper beams and crash boxes are structural vehicle elements that have very critical functions during frontal collisions. This study examined the energy ab-sorbed by the front bumper system and the reaction forces to the cage structure representing the vehicle cabin frame during a full frontal crash against a rigid wall. For this purpose, 25 different crash analyses were conducted using the ANSYS software by changing the sheet thickness values of the bumper beam (t1) and crash boxes-frontal crash rails (t2) that make up the front bumper system. The internal energy (absorbed energy) of the front bumper elements from the analysis results and the reaction forces acting on the representative cage struc-ture in the opposite direction to the movement were examined. When the ob-tained data were interpreted according to variable thickness, it was observed that the variable t2 significantly affected both the absorbed energy and reaction force results, while the variable t1 did not have a significant effect on the results. Based on this, the thickness value t2 was determined as the design variable of the size optimization problem. When the optimization problem established with the reac-tion force and absorbed energy constraint functions was solved, the optimal t2 thickness value with the highest absorbed energy / peak reaction force ratio was found.

Keywords

Bumper beam, Crash box, Energy absorption, Finite element analysis, Frontal impact, Reaction force, Size optimization

References

• Thomas P, Frampton R. Large and Small Cars in Real-World Crashes -Patterns of Use, Collision Types and Injury Outcomes, 43rd Annual Meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine. Barcelona, 1999; 43:101-118.
• Status Report newsletter, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety IIHS. 2014; 49, No. 11:1-4.
• Nakazawa Y, Tamura K, Yoshida M, Takagi K, Kano M. Development of crash-box for passenger car with high capability for energy absorption. VIII. International Conference on Computational Plasticity. Barcelona, 2005:1-4.
• Zhang X, Zhang H, Ren W. Axial crushing of tubes fabricated by metal sheet bending. Thin-Walled Structures. Elsevier Ltd; 2018; 122:252–263.
• Costas M, Díaz J, Romera LE, Hernández S, Tielas A. Static and dynamic axial crushing analysis of car frontal impact hybrid absorbers. International Journal of Impact Engineering. Pergamon; 2013; 62:166–181.
• Öztürk İ. Design and optimisation of hybrid material bumper beams under impact loading. International Journal of Crashworthiness. Taylor & Francis; 2020; 1-13
• Shen Z, Qiao X, Chen H. BIW safety performance research based on vehicle frontal crash, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering. Springer Verlag; 2013:13-26.
• Bilbay FB, Reis M, Çakan BG, Çakır MC. Crush Performance Comparison of FEE340 and DP600 Materials as Front Collision Rail in Automobiles. Uludağ University Journal of The Faculty of Engineering. (in Turkish), 2019; 24(1): 415-428.
• Özel S, Karagöz S, Beytüt H. Crashworthiness investigation of vehicle front bumper beam with different cross-sections under axial dynamic load. European Journal of Technique. 2020; 10(1): 97-105.
• Wågström L, Thomson R, Pipkorn B. Structural adaptivity in frontal collisions: implications on crash pulse characteristics. International Journal of Crashworthiness. 2005; 10(4):371–378.
• Zeng F, Xie H, Qiming L, Li F, Tan W. Design and optimization of a new composite bumper beam in high-speed frontal crashes. Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization. 2016; 53:115–122.
• Li Z, Yu Q, Zhao X, Yu M, Shi P, Yan C. Crashworthiness and lightweight optimization to applied multiple materials and foam-filled front end structure of auto-body. Advances in Mechanical Engineering. 2017; 9(8):1–21.
• Memiş İ. Impact response of Ramor500 armor steel subjected to high velocities. Dokuz Eylül University, Institute of Science, Mechanical Engineering, Master's Thesis, 2016.
• Yıldız AR. Optimum design of vehicle components using structural optimization techniques. Journal of Polytechnic. 2017; 20(2):319-323.