Abstract
As regard to car frontal crash, previous researches have indicated that the front side member plays a major role in energy absorption. For protecting the passengers, the front side member is expected to absorb crash energy as much as possible. In this study, we investigated the crash characteristics of half cut type side member structure by optimal design method to improve energy absorption ability. We developed an automatic optimal design system, in which the analysis meshes are generated with a group of design parameters and shape optimization is carried out automatically. The design variables are side member cross section shape, spot welding pitch length, divisional section numbers and radius difference along the axial direction, and the number of subdivision levels. As the result, the optimal side member structure with half cut type is capable of absorbing 1.44 times (1.29 times per unit mass) more energy than the original rectangular cross sectional side member structure with half cut type which is generally used.
