Crashworthiness of a Truck Cabin using Finite Element Simulation

Abstract

A crash test is a form of destructive testing in order to ensure safe design in case of an impact or collision. These impact tests are carried out to understand a components structural behaviour and its response under different collision conditions. But it is not always economical to destroy a specimen to ensure its safety, especially in case of small scale production. Moreover actual crash testing in different conditions requires high resources and time. Crash simulation is very popular now a days because it is a virtual representation of a destructive crash test of a vehicle using a computer simulation in order to examine the level of safety of the vehicle and its occupants in different conditions like collision velocity, collision direction, colliding object, material and number of component of colliding object etc and hence saves the time and cost. Data obtained from a crash simulation indicate the capability of the vehicle body to protect the vehicle occupants during a collision against injury. In this study a FE crash analysis of commercial truck cabin in two different cases (Bare cabin and loaded cabin) using Finite Element Approach (FEA) is focused. Crash analysis of truck cab is performed using FEA in order to predict the design parameters for minimization harm to the occupants of the vehicle. A bare truck cabin and a rigid wall were used to simulate crash conditions with different crashing velocity and impact angles. CATIA V5R20 CAD software is used for the modeling of the selected cabin components followed by FE meshing through Hypermesh and then analysis is done using LS-DYNA by setting the boundary conditions, material properties etc. appropriately.