Design of Front Structure of Vehicle for Pedestrian Headform Protection

Vehicle Hood being the face of a passenger car poses the challenge to meet the regulatory and aesthetic requirements. Urge to make a saleable product makes aesthetics a primary condition. This eventually makes the role of structure optimization much more important. Pedestrian protection- a recent development in the Indian automotive industry, known for dynamics of cost competitive cars, has posed the challenge to make passenger cars meeting the regulation at minimal cost. The paper demonstrates structure optimization of hood and design of peripheral parts for meeting pedestrian protection performance keeping the focus on low cost of ownership. The paper discusses development of an in-house methodology for meeting Headform compliance of a flagship model of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., providing detailed analysis of the procedure followed from introduction stage of regulatory requirement in the project to final validation of the engineering intent. The paper presents the impact of major limitations, such as, usage of common platform, aesthetics of hood, height of hood and layout of safety devices present below the hood -on design of hood for meeting pedestrian compliance. The case becomes further difficult owing to limited time available. The paper unfolds the strategies used to reduce injury criteria: change in hood assembly structure (except outer panel), layout of surrounding parts design of frontal structure, design of new hood hinge and design of safety device (hood switch) for better strength. In addition to this, many proposals have been discussed in the paper to make a cost efficient yet qualitative passenger car.