A Global Energy Absorber Concept for Combined Pedestrian and IIHS Regulations

Most of the existing energy absorbers (EA) are designed to meet safety regulations with respect to individual geographic locations. North American markets will require that the design should satisfy the FMVSS, IIHS and CMVSS regulations that require the EA to protect the car. The European and Asia-Pacific markets have a different set of requirements that focuses also on the safety of the pedestrian. Design for the former will require the EA to be stiffer, whereas, for the latter markets, the EA will need to be much softer in order to protect the pedestrian. To address the global market, there is a need to design an EA that satisfies these regulations in a truly global sense. In this paper, concept of the global EA is explored and validated using a representative automotive front-end design