| Abstract [eng] |
A bumper forms the front and the rear most part of any vehicle thus any impact on the vehicle should be sustained by these bumpers initially. A very good bumper safeguards other parts of the vehicle including the occupants of the vehicle. It absorbs energy during the impact and dissipates it to the frame and vehicle body. Hence researchers focus on increasing the impact strength of these bumpers either by using efficient materials or by improving the design of the bumper. In the present work, a bumper of a passenger car is designed, modified and analyzed for impact strength. The bumper is designed using CATIA V5 and analyzed using ANSYS 14.5. Analysis of the bumper is carried out by using different materials in order to study the material behavior during the impact. During this analysis process all the boundary conditions like the velocity of the bumper, wall thickness of the bumper, distance of the bumper from the wall are maintained to be constant. It is done so in order to compare the effects of the material during the crash .The materials studied are Steel, Aluminium , Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene(ABS), Polypropylene(PP) , Polycarbonate(PC), 30% Glass Filled ABS, 30% Glass Filled PP , 30% Glass Filled PC and ABS with steel ribs . All these bumpers are tested for low velocity impact at 7 m/sec or 25.2 Km/hr . Only low velocity impact is considered, as energy absorption and dissipation can be clearly studied during low velocity impact whereas in high velocity impact these studies is not so clear due to the crash of the bumper in a short time. This could improve the overall crashworthiness design of the car. The bumper is modeled according to the United Nation Regulations as the modeled bumper is referred for dimensions from a present day running Sports Utility Vehicle .This bumper after analyzing through the Finite Element software (Ansys 14.5) produces the results and these results are further compared in order to conclude a better material for the car bumper. |
