Small overlap frontal crashes occur when vehicles are loaded outboard of their longitudinal structural members. Studies from the 1990s as well as current research have found that these crashes continue to account for a significant percentage of all serious frontal crashes. The National Automotive Sampling System/Crashworthiness Data System database was used to study the characteristics of these...

A wide range of composite material forms are finding use in today’s aerospace, automotive, and other transportation industry segments. The Boeing 787 commercial airliner, unveiled in 2007, features over 50% carbon fiber composites by structural weight, while the entire structure of the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento supercar, unveiled in 2011, is made exclusively from carbon fiber composites [1-2]....

The rapidly increasing use of structural adhesives, especially in the joining automotive body structures has motivated various investigations effects adhesive curing process on joints. automotive-grade adhesives require heat curing, which, meantime, performs thermal loading substrates and causes undesirable joint. For example, results complex residual stresses bond which are detrimental to perf...

In this study, the level of protection offered to rear seat occupants in frontal crashes is investigated. The Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System (NASS CDS) databases were used for the analyses. The investigation focused on: 1- estimating the fatality protection effectiveness of the rear seat position relative to the righ...

Ensuring the safety of vehicle’s occupants during a crash is of foremost importance during the vehicle design process. Computer modeling of crashworthiness decreases the design cost and empowers the designers to explore new concepts with more confidence that their final product would be feasible and would perform to design specifications. To capture the complexity of vehicle deformations in com...

The focus of this paper is on a large-scale reliability based design optimization of a car body structure for crash safety. The application of multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) to automotive vehicle structure design has been an interest topic over the past several years (Yang et al. 1994, Schramm et al. 1999). Sobieski et al. (2000) and Kodiyalam et al. (2001) reported a method with v...

This paper deals with the undesired effects of heat treatments on mechanical properties (UHSS) Ultra High Strength Steel used nowadays in automotive industry to improve crashworthiness performance vehicles. The UHSS specimens were extracted from certain parts car body and subjected different treatments. Four types tested: untreated, welded metal inert gas welding, treated at 800 °C, 1250 °C. Al...

The highly competitive automotive business industry requires manufacturers to pay more attention to passenger comfort and riding quality. This has forced designers to direct their attention to the development of high quality engine mountings. The energy absorption characteristics of the engine mount are mainly influenced by two variables, the material and the design. In real world automotive ma...

In recent years there has been an increased effort to investigate and improve the crashworthiness of passenger rail vehicles in the United States. The structural crashworthiness requirements for new rail vehicles are changing to include specifications for crash energy management and crush zones rather than primarily specifications of vehicle and component strengths. In addition, the structural ...

With the developments in automobile technologies; more focus is given to the vehicle weight reduction. About 30% weight is contributed by the automobile body. Now-a-days, plastic composites are used to manufacture automobile bodies as they are strong, light, corrosion resistant and easy to use. This paper represents the selection of plastic composites to build vehicle roof as a replacement of c...