STUDY ON OPTIMIZATION OF COMPOSITE CONICAL STRUCTURES FOR CRASHWORTHINESS APPLICATIONS

ABSTRACT
In the last decade, lightweight energy-absorption structures in airframes and automotive
vehicles are increasingly used to meet the crashworthiness requirements with a minimum
weight increase. Crashworthiness may be defined as the ability of a vehicle to protect its
occupants from death or serious injury in an accident of a given severity.
Composite materials are often used to reduce the weight of structures. In the automotive
industry weight reduction is important because fuel consumption is directly related to
vehicular weight.
In this paper numerical investigations into the crushing of woven roving laminated conical
system have been conducted. Energy absorption capability can be achieved if the
longitudinal properties of composite structures are being utilized. This can only be done if
the energy absorbing system post failure scenario would be mitigated to be tearing failure
mechanism. The system was designed by slipping a solid cone into composite cone. The
semi cone angles used were 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 degrees. The cone height and bottom
diameter were kept constant for all cases as 100 mm and 76.2 mm, respectively. The
results demonstrated that the energy was dissipated in the form of friction at the first crush
stage, while the post crush stage was dominated by tearing failure mechanisms.