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Previous work identified a relationship between vehicle drop and dummy injury under the high-speed frontal impact condition [1]. The results showed that vehicle drop greater than 60mm made the dummy injury worse. Moreover, that work identified the front side member as the crucial part affecting the vehicle drop. In this study, the body structure mechanism was studied to reduce vehicle drop by controlling the front side member, shotgun, and A-pillar. By analyzing full vehicles, it was recognized that the arch shape of the front side member was very important. Furthermore, if the top of the arch shape of front side member, shotgun, and A-pillar were connected well, then the body deformation energy could lift the lower part of A-pillar, effectively reducing vehicle drop. This structure design concept is named “Body Lift Structure” (BLS). The BLS was applied to B and C segment platforms. Additionally, a “Ring” shape was defined by the front side member, dash panel, and A-pillar.

Given the importance of vehicle safety, OEMs are focused on ensuring the safety of passengers during car accidents. Injury is related to the passenger’s kinematics and interaction with airbag, seatbelt, and vehicle drop. However, the correlation between vehicle drop (vehicle pitch) and passengers’ injury is the main issue recently being discussed. This paper presents the definition of vehicle drop and analyzes the relationship through a dynamic sled test. This study defines the relationship between individual vehicle systems (body, chassis, tire, etc.) and vehicle drop, and how to control the amount of vehicle drop to minimize the injury of passengers.

At present, the assembling order of COWL is decided according to the design of the Vehicle’s A pillar outer. Therefore when the factory layout changes, extensive costs are needed according to the changes of the A pillar outer design. Thus, this study was carried out to develop a new COWL structure that is able to determine the layout of the factory without changing the design of the A pillar outer. In addition, by adjusting the DFSS tool to COWL, the direction of the material and thickness of COWL was studied to optimize the dynamic stiffness of the body structure and pedestrian protection performance. Based on this study, the optimization of the OPEN COWL is presented.