Modification and Analysis of Frontal Frame Structure of a Small Car with Different Composite Materials for Improving Self Protection in a Frontal Crash

Abstract

Now a day’s vehicle accident is becoming critical issue all over the world particularly in Ethiopia that demands engineer’s endeavor to find ways to minimize the incidence. Preservation of passenger compartment space during a frontal vehicle collision is extremely significant for the self-protection of small cars. It is well known that crash speed, mass, stiffness and geometric interaction all have an influence on the intrusion of the passenger compartment in a frontal impact between vehicles. Ladder chassis is considered to be one of the oldest forms of automotive chassis or automobile chassis that is still used by most of the SUVs till today. As its name connotes, ladder chassis resembles a shape of a ladder having two longitudinal rails inter linked by several lateral and cross braces Crash guards used in Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) serves as a platform for avoiding frontal collisions and ensures occupant safety .This paper proposed on modification and analysis of frame structure for the front end of Haunghai Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) expected to achieve a previously unavailable level of efficiency of energy absorption, strength and weight reduction in order to reduce front SUV component and passenger compartment intrusion during crash by focusing on analyzing the static and dynamic behavior of the frontal upper cross beam modified from frame rail during full frontal impact against a rigid barrier in order to predict the Von misses stresses , deformation ,natural frequencies and strain energy in the components, with the help of CATIA V5 for geometric modeling and ANSYS 14.5 for analysis. The simulation predicted that the modified shape and material which have less deform, less weight, less stress (which is less than the yield strength of the material) and better energy absorbing capacity from comparison of different material is selected at the end of simulation. Depend on the analysis, thus results can be effectively utilized in modeling the frontal frame structure behavior for crash loads and successfully identify the safe performance.