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Automotive knee bolster requirements have changed substantially in recent years due to expanded safety requirements. A three-piece cellular structural knee bolster assembly has been evolved to meet this matrix of requirements while being extremely lightweight (as low as 0.7 Kg), low in cost and easily tunable to work in various car/truck programs. The energy absorber is the primary component of this assembly and allows for a range of occupant sizes and weights to be restrained (from 50 Kg/152 cm 5th percentile female to 100 Kg/188cm 95th percentile male occupants). The evolution of this knee bolster assembly design is described using crush analysis, component testing to validate the crush analysis, instrument panel assembly level analysis with occupant models and sled tests. Steel and aluminum versions of this knee bolster are compared - in terms of weight, cost, design tunability for various crash conditions, structural stiffness etc.

O-EA tubing is a composite structure, made of aluminum and paper, that is being used for energy absorption and crash injury mitigation in automotive head impact, side impact and knee bolster applications. This paper describes the component testing, material/geometry characterization and the evolution of a finite element model of the O-EA tubing through a 3-Stage methodology. In the first part of the paper, a description of the O-EA tubing construction and the manufacturing process is provided. Next, the material and geometry characterization of the constituent aluminum and paper layers, using static component tests and a finite element model, is described. A layered composite material model in conjunction with a shell element discretization of the geometry is identified to be the most suitable modeling approach.