Designing Ductile Thermoplastic Impact Structures for Instrument Panels

The advent of airbags in passenger vehicles has resulted in the need for instrument panel components which are capable of handling high rate, high load impact in order to control kinematics of the occupant and air bags. This paper summarizes information from the development of thermoplastic structures to be utilized in impact areas of instrument panels. It discusses design, molding, and analysis considerations along with presentation of data obtained from testing injection molded parts.