Crash simulation and development of automotive bumper impact beam design for weight reduction

摘要

Increasing fuel economy has been a principal issue in the development of new cars. Decrease in weight of vehicle components is one of the important approaches to solving the problem. In order to obtain the goal, researches sought for ways to design lighter and stronger bumper impact beams relinquishing neither impact absorbing capacity of bumpers nor the safety of vehicles. In this paper, a possible weight reduction of impact beam is examined by substituting conventional type of steel with high-strength steel (boron steel having tensile strength 1.5 GPa) with regard to variables such as frontal, offset and corner impact crash capability of a bumper impact beam. In addition, the effects of variation in structural differences in bumper impact beams (open section, closed section, open section with 5 stays) were carefully considered. Arguably, this analysis presents a good guide for an optimum design and development of bumper impact beams.