Composite side-door impact beams for passenger cars

The fuel efficiency and emission gas regulation of passenger cars are two important issues nowadays. The best way to increase fuel efficiency without sacrificing safety is to employ fibre reinforced composite materials in the body of cars because fibre-reinforced composite materials have higher specific strengths than those of steel. In this study, the side-door impact beam for passenger cars was developed using glass-fibre-reinforced composite materials as metals usually have a lower capacity of impact absorption energy at Bow temperature compared with that of glass-fibre-reinforced composite materials. Static tests were carried out to determine the optimum fibre stacking sequences and cross-sectional thickness for the composite impact beams taking consideration of the weight saving ratio compared to the high strength steel. Dynamic tests were carried out at several different temperatures using the pneumatic impact tester, which was developed to investigate the dynamic characteristics of impact beams at a speed of 30 mph. Also, finite-element analyses were performed using ABAQUS, a commercial software to compare the simulated characteristics of the impact beams with the experimental results. From the comparison, it was found that the results from the finite-element analyses showed good agreement with the experimental results, although several assumptions were made in the finite-element analyses. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.