Design and Simulation of Adaptive Low-Speed Electro-Pneumatic Frontal Impact Absorption System for Crossover Vehicles

Abstract

Vehicle frontal low-speed impact creates vehicle frontal component damage and driver injuries. In conventional vehicle frontal impact protection system, the frontal foam and reinforcing bar reduce the amount of damage and the degree of injuries, and it is the fact that heavier opponent needs stiffer structure and lighter opponent need less stiff structure but those structural components behave similarly in every crash situation. This work deals with using controlled pneumatic actuator as low speed and adaptable impact absorber in vehicle frontal impact absorption system in order to create dynamic behaviour of impact absorber and achieve sufficient damping during the event of crash. In this work, air spring dynamic property is simulated using ABAQUS simulation software and all controlling electrical and electro-pneumatic components behaviour is animated by using both Proteus 8 Professional and ARDUINO. To control the system, different electrical sensors, controllers and actuators are used. At the back of the air spring, the pressure sensor is mounted to control the amount of pressure needed in the air spring and the compressor control system is coded to pre-conditions to maintain the amount of pressure needed and to make idle the control system when the situation is in crash situation. The microcontroller is coded with the ARDUINO software by studying the real-time scenarios and it uses the input from the ultrasonic sensor to measure the distance between cars. In line with the ultrasonic sensing, the vehicle speed is sensed, and then the microcontroller compares the distance and the speed of the car and decides whether the car can achieve 0 kph within this distance or not. The result of electro-pneumatic shows a sufficiently good agreement with the physical parameter taken and the controlled system is able to execute and take action within 15 µs which is less than the impact duration for low-speed frontal crash and stiffer air spring column is maintained when the severity of crash is higher by comparing speed and distance between cars and less stiff air spring column is maintained when the severity of crash is minimum.