Crashworthiness analysis of structures made from polymers

A comparative review of material models for polymers subjected to impact loading is presented. Due to the different material models, polymers are classified in incompressible elastomers, compressible foams and thermoplastics. Elastomers and recoverable foams are based on the same theoretical description: hyperelasticity. We present a material law which allows fast generating of input data based on uniaxial static and dynamic tensile tests at different strain rates. As an application, the deformation behavior of a Hardy disk during a frontal offset impact is investigated. For thermoplastics, we give an overview of suitable material laws and show how the behavior can be characterized approximately by using metal plasticity. On the basis of a three-point bending test, the predictions of the presented approaches are compared critically. Some typical applications of polymer modeling in modern crash simulation are shown by means of pedestrian protection.

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