Vehicle upper body structure integrity is a critical requirement for protecting occupants during rollover accidents. SUVs are known to have a higher sensitivity to rollover compared to sedans due to their higher center of gravity. With the increased number of SUVs on the road, there has been a significant increase in fatalities due to rollover accidents. To reduce the number of fatalities, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed a change to the current roof crush requirements. NHTSA's new proposal suggests that all OEMs should have a compliance plan for a roof structure that provides up to 2.5 times the vehicle gross weight (today 1,5 times) during roof crush while providing enough head room for an average male occupant. Advanced high strength steel (AHSS) and structural polyurethane BETAFOAM technologies have both been used independently in automobile body structure designs to achieve structural performance improvements and weight reduction. However, each technology has fundamental limitations in certain applications. Weight reduction with AHSS is frequently limited by elastic stiffness requirements when gauge is reduced. Structural foam inherently provides the required additional local stiffness to prevent early collapse of steel structural members thereby allowing usage of AHSS at reduced gauges. This presentation will review a full size pickup cab structure design that demonstrates how AHSS and structural BETAFOAM can be used together with the following results: 1. The hybrid AHSS/BETAFOAM pickup cab roof structure design provided a roof crush load performance improvement that was greater than the sum of that provided by AHSS or BETAFOAM when used independently. 2. Compared to a simple upgrade/up gauge with AHSS, the hybrid design met the proposed new FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) 216 roof crush load requirement of 2.5 times GVW with a weight avoidance of 33 lbs. 3. The hybrid AHSS/BETAFOAM concept should be considered in other body structure applications as a means to further lightweight the body structure.


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    Title :

    Combined application of advanced high strength steels and structural BETAFOAM for increased weight reduction in steel automotive structures


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2006


    Size :

    7 Seiten, 10 Bilder, 3 Tabellen, 2 Quellen


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English





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