Numerical and Experimental Crashworthiness Determination of Aluminum Tube Sections

Abstract

Generally, vehicle safety is a vital issue in the field of automobile industry. Ensuring the safety of passengers is one of the prime challenges for vehicle design engineers. Automobile safety can be determined from the ability of vehicle structure and its internal support systems to protect the occupants from injuries during an accident. In the present work an attempt has been made to determine the dynamic crash characteristics of hollow aluminum tubes for various impact velocities using numerical technique. Aluminum tubes with diagonal ribs were modeled with and without considering the presence of cracks. Surface cut outs were introduced to verify their influence on energy absorption. One of the important crash parameter peak force experienced by the tubes with rib is compared with tubes without rib. Reduced peak force was observed for the tubes with ribs compared to the ones without ribs, which indicates higher energy absorbing capacity of the tube with the presence of ribs. Significant increase in initial peak force (RF) was noticed with increase of impact velocity. Higher impact energy absorption was noted for a structure with the presence of slit. Experiments were conducted on ribbed hollow tubes and specimens with through hole at the center of the specimen. Results indicate that, ribbed specimens provide significant reduction of peak force compared to bare specimen.