Abstract
Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) laminates are used in various industrial fields because they have excellent properties such as a specific strength and a specific stiffness. The use of CFRP in the manufacture of automobiles can lead to a significant reduction in automobile weight, thereby improving the vehicle mileage as well as reducing CO2 emissions. On the other hand, the issue of passenger safety in case of collisions should also be clarified when employing CFRP in the fabrication of automotive structures. The objective of this study is to establish a simulation technology for investigating the impact response behavior of rectangular CFRP tubes, which were equipped with two ribs, under full-lap collision conditions. We performed drop weight impact tests to investigate the impact response behavior and impact energy absorption characteristics of the developed CFRP tubes; the tests involved dropping an impactor from a height of 12 m so that the impactor speed just before impact was approximately 55 km/h. A finite element (FE) model was also developed by using the nonlinear, explicit dynamic code LS-DYNA to simulate the impact response behavior of the rectangular CFRP tubes under impact loading. With regard to the load-displacement curves, the experimental results showed a good agreement with the FEM results. The maximum load, absorbed energy, and final displacement calculated by the FEM model were in good agreement with the corresponding average values obtained from the impact test results.
