Nowadays the key points in the automotive design are the pollutant emissions and the safety. For these reasons, on one side, in the car design the tendency is to use innovative lightweight materials in order to reduce the weight of the vehicle and consequently the fuel consumption and the gas emissions. On the other side, to reach high level of safety, these materials have to be able to absorb high amount of energy in case of impact. For these reasons, in the last decades, the use of composites as design material for impact attenuators in automotive design is increased significantly. The ever-wider use of composite materials for automotive applications involves the need to predict their behaviour under various load conditions which they are subjected, for example with the use of finite element codes. Moreover, more recently, the strong emphasis on recyclability from the end-of-life vehicle directive seems to affect significantly the choice of materials in the design phase. In this overview, the use of thermoplastic composite based components for vehicle structure is investigated in this work. In particular a thermoplastic fibres combined with a thermoplastic matrix is considered. An experimental test campaign, in order to define the mechanical properties of this new material is carried out. Starting from the information obtained in the first experimental tests, the energy absorption capacity of impact attenuators made as thin wall tubes of circular cross section is investigated. The crushing sensitivity of these structures to the wall thickness and to the resistant section is studied. The experimental results and the failure mechanisms obtained in the tests are presented and discussed in the paper.

Investigation on the energy absorption capability of composite crash-box with recyclable thermoplastic material / Boria, S.; Scattina, Alessandro. - (2015). (Intervento presentato al convegno 20th International Conference on Composite Materials tenutosi a Copenhagen (Danimarca) nel 19-24 luglio 2015).

Investigation on the energy absorption capability of composite crash-box with recyclable thermoplastic material

SCATTINA, ALESSANDRO
2015

Abstract

Nowadays the key points in the automotive design are the pollutant emissions and the safety. For these reasons, on one side, in the car design the tendency is to use innovative lightweight materials in order to reduce the weight of the vehicle and consequently the fuel consumption and the gas emissions. On the other side, to reach high level of safety, these materials have to be able to absorb high amount of energy in case of impact. For these reasons, in the last decades, the use of composites as design material for impact attenuators in automotive design is increased significantly. The ever-wider use of composite materials for automotive applications involves the need to predict their behaviour under various load conditions which they are subjected, for example with the use of finite element codes. Moreover, more recently, the strong emphasis on recyclability from the end-of-life vehicle directive seems to affect significantly the choice of materials in the design phase. In this overview, the use of thermoplastic composite based components for vehicle structure is investigated in this work. In particular a thermoplastic fibres combined with a thermoplastic matrix is considered. An experimental test campaign, in order to define the mechanical properties of this new material is carried out. Starting from the information obtained in the first experimental tests, the energy absorption capacity of impact attenuators made as thin wall tubes of circular cross section is investigated. The crushing sensitivity of these structures to the wall thickness and to the resistant section is studied. The experimental results and the failure mechanisms obtained in the tests are presented and discussed in the paper.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11583/2619271
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