With new and evolving safety regulations and stringent emission standards, designing for vehicle safety as part of the total design process has been increasing over the last decade, with the effect of reducing the number of fatal and serious injury risks for vehicle occupants. For the truck driver this is driven by the new ECE R29/3 cabin safety regulations with emphasis on front impact and roll-over occupant safety. Next to that, for the occupants of a passenger car, the ECE R93 regulation sets the requirements to be met in order to prevent the smaller vehicle from being pushed under the heavy truck in the event of a frontal collision. Steel countermeasures are typically used as structural reinforcing elements to fulfill these two regulations. This paper presents thermoplastic designs as light-weight solutions to replace traditional steel. SABIC has a long history in plastic crash & energy management solutions which are being used in numerous vehicles. Two concepts that can be used as body in white (BIW) reinforcement are discussed in the paper: a plastic/metal hybrid countermeasure consisting of stamped steel with a thermoplastic reinforcing rib structure and a plastic/composite hybrid countermeasure in which the stamped steel is replaced by a thermoplastic composite. Prototypes are assembled inside a B-Pillar replica, evaluated in a 4 point bending test and compared to a steel reinforcement. The plastic/metal hybrid reinforcement shows a 15 percent increase in energy absorption at a reduced weight of 25 percent compared to a high strength steel reinforcement. For the plastic/composite hybrid reinforcement, the energy absorption increase is about 30 percent while being 45 percent lighter compared to the high strength steel design. Plastic/metal hybrid concepts combine the advantages of inherent material properties of both metal and plastics and the manufacturing flexibilities of plastics. In order to meet the ECE R93 regulation, these plastic/metal hybrids can be used as an alternative to incumbent solutions. The conventional front underrun protection device (FUPD) is currently formed through the assembly of steel parts that are relatively heavy. A lightweight hybrid FUPD solution concept is presented in this paper. Finite Element methods using LS-DYNA are used to evaluate the performance of this FUPD. The study shows that the innovative modular concept has the potential to fulfill the safety requirements while enabling a weight saving of up to 40 percent compared to a full steel concept. Integration of additional functionalities into the hybrid structure can bring further cost advantages, ease of assembly and ease of replacement. This hybrid FUPD technology can also be developed for rear and side underrun protection.


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    Title :

    Plastic hybrid solutions in truck body-in-white reinforcements and in front underrun protection


    Contributors:
    Winters, R. (author) / Bobba, S. (author) / Naghwansi, D. (author)


    Publication date :

    2015


    Size :

    23 Seiten, Bilder, Tabellen, 5 Quellen


    Remarks:

    (inkl. 8 S. Folienpräsentation); (engl. Version S. 421-452)



    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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