On the Characteristics of Energy Absorption Control in Thin-Walled Members for the Use of Vehicular Structures

Impact energy should sufficiently be absorbed in order to secure the protections of passengers in a car accident. There have been a lot of studies on the impact energy absorption of a basic structure in automobiles. Thin-walled structural side members have been widely used for the impact energy. The side members have usually been absorbed bringing the plastic deformation in collision. It is an important factor that energy absorption characteristics (collapse behavior by plastic deformation) might be evaluated before the step of basic design. Notch shapes and structure modification applied to structural design have nowadays been used to keep up the efficiency of energy absorption. Such ideas may result in the reduction of structural stiffness and buckling or collapse can easily be done in collision. Therefore, a controller will be used which had been developed in order to control and increase the absorbing energy. Also practically to-be-expected data of automobile structural members are obtained for the optimum performance. Effects have experimentally been confirmed based on the thickness and position of a controller. Also nonlinear FEM (finite element method) commercial program LS-DYNA was utilized and experimentation and FEM have been verified under the same conditions.