NUMERICAL STUDY OF PULTRUDED COMPOSITE BUMPER BEAM USING GEOMETRICALLY OPTIMIZED PROFILE
Abstract
In addition to their high specific strength and specific stiffness, Composite materials possess high energy absorption capability, which makes them an attractive structural material in automobile, where the weight saving and crashworthiness is highly desirable. However, their low volume production and high manufacturing cost have been hindered their particular application in automotive structural components. Pultrusion is a rapidly growing, cost-effective and highly automated manufacturing process of constant cross-section composite profiles, which is promising to narrow the gap. In this work, using non linear explicit finite element software, Abaqus, both frontal and angular, low velocity impact simulation of glass fiber/epoxy pultruded bumper beams has been analyzed and their energy absorption property has compared with steel and glass /epoxy fabric composite, with the same loading, frontal curvature, thickness, and overall dimensions. Further conceptual beam profile specifically optimized for crashworthiness is proposed. Through investigation of impact event characteristics such as, force/time, force/deflection, deflection /time and acceleration/time curves, pultruded beam profiles shows comparable energy absorption with low crush force by progressive tearing failure due to their low transverse strength.