Energy-absorbing hybrid structures used to improve vehicles’ crashworthiness

Analysis of crashworthy structures has been a primary area of interest for many researchers for quite a few years now. The quest for a better energy absorbing structure or a better crashworthystructure has led researchers to carry out various analysis procedures experimentally and by simulating the characteristics. E-glass fiber reinforced epoxy wrapped over aluminumtube has proven to possess better energy absorbing capabilities. This paper attempts to analyzecertain characteristics of such hybrid structures. This paper examines the properties with respect to energy absorption of the above-mentioned tubes when certain parameters such asply orientation, angle of impact, speed of impact for different aspect ratios, are varied. Theaxial crushing behavior and the energy absorption capability of aluminum composite hybrid tube under quasi-static loading is studied using LS-DYNA finite element solver. An aluminumtube, externally wrapped with E-glass epoxy composite material with two layers and plyorientation of ±30o, ±45o and 0/90o, are used for finite element analysis. The speeds considered are 8mph, 15 mph and 30 mph. The angles of impact considered are 0o, 15o, and 30o.The analysis is carried out for various permutations and combinations of the abovementionedparameters, and the results obtained are studied and aims at optimum set of parameters for making the energy absorption of such hybrid structures.

کلیدواژه ها:

crashworthiness ، Finite Element Method ، energy absorption ، hybrid structure ، safety