FRONT STRUCTURE DESIGN PROCEDURE FOR OPTIMAL PEDESTRIAN LEG IMPACT PERFORMANCE

摘要

This paper describes a procedure to optimize the front structure of a vehicle for improved performance in the leg impact portion of pedestrian safety regulations proposed by the European Enhanced Vehicle-Safety Committee (EEVC). The first step in this procedure was to perform a simulation of the EEVC leg impact test with detailed finite element models of the EEVC leg impactor and the baseline design of a vehicle front structure. Next, a simplified, parametric finite element model of the vehicle front structure was used with the leg impactor model to simulate the leg impact test, and the results were correlated to the detailed finite element model and the test results. The leg impact simulation with the parametric vehicle model was then incorporated into an optimization procedure developed within the optimization code ISIGHT. In this procedure the parameters that controlled the vehicle geometry and structural stiffness in the simplified model were altered by ISIGHT to improve performance in the leg impact test.