Crash Analysis of Vehicle Front Bumper and Its Optimization

The objective of this paper is to investigate the crash energy absorbtion of bumper-crash box system subjected to 40% offset impact loading. Nonlinear finite element model was created and impact test was simu- lated using Ls-Dyna software. Design of experiment method is used to construct approximated design functions then size optimization technique is defined to solve the problem of minimization of the total weight. Matlab was used to solve the size optimization problem and optimum sheet thickness value was determined for the impact condition of 40% offset. The study also has shown that crushing initiator geometry on the crash box significantly decrease the maximum initial reaction force but its effect on energy absorbing capacity was relatively small.