The Evaluation of Crashworthiness of Vehicles with Forming Effect

This paper is concerned with a crash analysis for vehicle structures considering forming effects. The properties of formed vehicle structures have been effected and changed by such as work hardening, non-uniform thickness distribution resulted from the forming process. The crash analysis of vehicle structures with the forming effects leads to different results from those without such effects. In this study, the forming effects of the front side member assembly of vehicle structures are considered. The plastic strain and thickness distribution from the simulation results of the forming process have been used as an initial condition for crash analysis. The crash analysis of a full vehicle structure has been performed with those forming effects, and the results are compared to those without the forming effects. The deceleration pulse and deformation from the results are calculated and investigated in order to identify forming effects. Analysis results demonstrate that crash analysis of vehicle structures with forming effects can be more effective for accurate approximation of deceleration pulse and deformation mode.