AN EVALUATION OF JUTE-EPOXY-HYBRID COMPOSITE MATERIALS FOR AUTOMOTIVE FRONTAL CRASH SAFETY APPLICATIONS

Abstract

The present work evaluates the occupant safety and the mechanical behavior of the Jute-Epoxy-Glass hybrid composite materials and to carry out dynamic analysis of an automobile car frontal components like Bumper beam by using Jute-Epoxy-Glass Hybrid composite material by FE approach. In the present study, HYPERMESH and LS-DYNA software is employed to obtain a better composite material. Durability, NVH, Crash safety and Aesthetics are some of the important vehicle attributes that need to be meet the vehicle manufacturer. While the crash safety for NHTSA requires the G level should be less then 40G'S at the occupant seat. Initially manufacturing of 4 ply, 6 ply (Jute-Epoxy) and 5 ply (Jute-Glass-Epoxy) laminates is done and there characterization is done under Quasi static (1mm/min) and Impact High strain rate loading (100mm/min and 200mm/min) for tensile tests. The mechanical properties obtained are set for the existing bumper beam of a meshed model. For bumper beam of a car with a given velocity of 56 km/h according to the NHTSA high speed crash test. For a high speed crash speed test of bumper beam the G levels is taken into consideration so that the G levels acting upon the occupant doesn't cross 40 G'S as safer. The results obtained from high strain rate of 200mm/min tensile tests explore to bumper beam for which G level acting on the occupant is 35 G's for hybrid jute glass epoxy with 6mm thickness which is found to be best suited composite material which is safer for the occupant and also the weight reduction is also considered where conventionally used steel is 6.6 kgs and the hybrid material of Jute-Glass-Epoxy is 2.9 kgs these weight savings leads to fuel efficiency of the car.