Crash FE Analysis of Front Side Assembly for Reverse Engineering

Crashworthiness design is of special interest in automotive industry and in the transportation safety field to ensure the vehicle structural integrity and more importantly the occupant safety in the event of the crash. Front side assembly is one of the most important energy absorbing components in relating to the crashworthiness design of vehicle. The structure and shape of the front side assemblies are different depending on automakers. Thus, it is not easy to grab an insight on designer's intention when you glance at a new front side member without experiences. In this paper, we have performed the explicit nonlinear dynamic finite element analysis on the front side assembly of a passenger car to identify the mechanical roles of each part of the assembly and to enhance the absorbing energy from the viewpoint of reverse engineering.