Abstract
Making vehicles lighter leads to improved fuel efficiency and fuel savings. Impact absorbers play an important role in improving car safety, and improving their performance while reducing their weight will help lower the risk of accidents and support the environmental goal of reduced fuel usage. Polypropylene is used to make impact absorbers, since it is a lightweight and recyclable material. By processing polypropylene into an optimal form, it can be designed to undergo compression buckling when an impact is applied. The impact energy that a material can absorb corresponds to the integral value of the buckling load and displacement when plastic compression buckling arises in the absorber. Consequently, causing more compression buckling can increase the amount of impact absorption. This study considers the optimal form of an absorber to maximize the amount of impact absorption. A crash analysis was performed via computer simulation that compared the amount of impact absorption of a cylindrical shell and polygonal tube. A comparison between the polygonal tube and a pyramid-shaped absorber was also performed. The analysis found that polygonal tubes are superior to cylindrical shells in impact absorption performance. This is because decreasing the width of the planar sections and increasing the number of ridgelines will improve the compression buckling of the impact absorber. It was also found that pyramid-shaped designs are superior to polygonal tubes as impact absorbers. This is because the cross-sectional areas become smaller near the apex, and the pyramid shape gives rise to regular compression buckling from near the apex. Based on these results a new form of impact absorber is proposed that attaches concavo-convex projections on the side of a pyramid shape. These results suggest that by processing into an optimal form to absorb the shock, lightweight polypropylene can provide sufficient amounts of impact absorption.
F2012-F01-004
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References
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport in Japan (2008) Published on the performance of automobile fuel efficiency
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Acknowledgments
We are very thankful to Dr. Kouji Mizuno of Nagoya University, Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering Mechano-Informatics and Systems Biomechanics and Human- Machine Systems Biomechanics Laboratory, and Mr. Yoshiaki Nakazawa of Sumitomo Metal Industries, Ltd, for their cooperation in the experimental analysis. For their instructive advice we also thank Mr. Kenichi Ohmae, CEO of Business-Breakthrough Ltd; Standing Adviser Mr. Yasuo Morimoto of Toshiba Corporation; and Professor Takatoshi Matsumoto of Hosei University, Department of Science and Engineering.
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© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Hideki, T. (2013). Development of an Impact Absorbing Component By Gimlet Form for Any Crushes. In: Proceedings of the FISITA 2012 World Automotive Congress. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 197. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33805-2_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33805-2_3
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