An Original Equipment to Measure the Energy Absorbed by a Material at High Impact Speed

To meet the automotive industry interests in having a good knowledge of the material behavior during a crash deformation, we have build a special equipment. This installation is dedicated to crash small structural parts and to measure the absorbed energy or other parameters. Also it allows also us to perform high speed tensile, compression or bending tests on simple samples.

The results that we have chosen to illustrate the functioning of the system concern a comparison of different materials (Mild steels, High Strength Steels). The comparison is oriented to the differences observed in the consolidation of the material mechanical properties during an high speed crash deformation in a given geometry. These different behaviors can be shown by mean of a numerical treatment of the measured signals.

The most important parameters will be presented and their influences will allow us to propose some rules to use the steel better according to its specificities.