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With a significant increase in awareness of sustainability and increased interest towards low-cost solutions, every automobile manufacturer is looking for light-weight, safer and modularized solutions for many systems involved in the vehicle. Weightage for these three factors can vary depending on the location and functionality of the system. Front end system of a vehicle is a typical example, where all the three factors assume equal importance. The system consists of a front end module (FEM) mounted with an energy-absorbing system designed to meet pedestrian safety requirements. The focus of this paper is to develop a methodology for the design of thermoplastic light-weight pedestrian-safe front end structure.

An automobile is designed to meet numerous impact events, including frontal impact, side impact, rear impact, and roll over. Roof crush resistance is a test defined by Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 216. The intent of this test is to evaluate the strength of the roof and supporting body structure during a vehicle rollover. Steel countermeasures are typically used as structural-reinforcing elements to the body structure to improve the crush strength of a vehicle roof. This paper presents a thermoplastic countermeasure (CM) design as a light-weight solution to replace traditional steel countermeasures. Two concepts are discussed in the paper: an all-plastic countermeasure and a plastic/metal hybrid countermeasure consisting of stamped steel with a thermoplastic reinforcing rib structure. Finite Element (FE) methods using LS-DYNA are used to evaluate the performance of these countermeasure concepts.

This paper presents a novel approach to design an efficient energy absorber using thermoplastic (PC/PBT - Polycarbonate/ Polybutylene Terephthalate) material. Automotive industry always demands minimum package space between bumper beam and fascia from styling perspective. This requires an efficient energy absorber, which can meet the energy absorption target through an idealized force-intrusion performance. In the present study, thermoplastic energy absorber with sequential failure is designed through geometrical configuration to achieve the idealized Force-Deformation (FD) curve. CAE techniques are used extensively for optimizing the design parameters of energy absorber to achieve the desired performance level. The results in the form of FD curve are compared with the idealized curve and the efficiency is calculated. Comparative studies are also performed with foam energy absorber solution.