Body Block FE Model Development and Correlation with Physical Tests

Steering column and steering wheel are critical safety components in vehicle interior environment. Steering system needs to be designed to absorb occupant impact energy in the event of crash thereby reducing the risk of injury to the occupant. This is more critical for non-airbag vehicle versions. To evaluate the steering system performance, Body block impact test is defined in IS11939 standard [1].

Nowadays for product development, CAE is being extensively used to reduce development cycle time and minimize number of prototypes required for physical validation. In order to design the steering system to meet the Body Block performance requirements, a detailed FE model of Body Block impactor is required. The static stiffness and moment of inertia of body block are defined in SAE J244a [2]. The reference data available in SAE J244a is not sufficient to develop a Body Block model that would represent the physical impactor. This paper details out the work done to develop a FE model of body block impactor from the physical impactor. This includes defining the geometry of impactor, static and dynamic stiffness and it’s stiffness validation with test data. The Body Block model developed was used for a system level evaluation and good correlation was observed with the physical test results with proposed impactor FE model.