Structural Analysis and Testing of Composites in Automotive Crashworthiness Application

The excellent energy absorption characteristics of composite materials in vehicle structures during vehicle collision are well known for a couple of years. For a long time period, the lack of experiences in the prediction of the crashworthiness of composites, has been a major problem for the application of these materials in automotive crash structures.

In this paper, the current progress in the prediction of the crashworthiness of automotive composite crash structures is presented. Progress is realized by simultaneous research work in both, theoretical modeling of these structures with Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and experimental investigation.