Citation

Han J, Yamazaki K. Int. J. Veh. Des. 2002; 31(1): 72-85.

Affiliation

Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, Tokyo 100-8117, Japan

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, Inderscience Publishers)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

During car frontal crash, the front side member is expected to be folded progressively, so as to absorb more energy and to ensure enough passenger space. As the front member of a vehicle body, crushing characteristics of a S-shape thin-walled box beam under an axial load has received crucial attention both experimentally and numerically. In this paper, the axial impact crushing behaviour of the S-shape square tube is studied by the finite element method, and effectiveness of stiffening at the curved parts and shape perturbation at two straight parts of tubes are discussed. Based on the numerical analyses, maximization problem of the dynamic crushing energy absorption of S-shape square tubes is solved by using the crashworthiness maximization technique for tubular structures which combines the techniques of response surface approximation, design-of-experiment as well as the usual mathematical programming.