Optimal design of a novel crash box with functional gradient negative Poisson’s ratio structure

Crashworthiness and anti-vibration performance play critical roles in the performance of passenger cars. Aiming at enhancing the crash resistance and vibration resistance of vehicles thus providing good protection for passengers and drivers, a novel crash box with three-dimensional double arrow type negative Poisson’s ratio structure with functional gradient filling inner core (FGNPR crash box) is introduced in this paper and its performance is studied in detail through the comparison with the conventional crash box and the crash box filled with the uniform gradient negative Poisson’s ratio structure (NPR crash box) in crashworthiness and vibration resistance. Furthermore, range analysis is used to screen out the design variables that have little influence on the evaluation indexes and eliminate them. Based on these, neighborhood cultivation genetic algorithm (NCGA) and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-ii (NSGA-II) are selected as the optimization algorithms to carry out optimization design respectively and a comparison is made between the two suboptimal results screened out based on the normal boundary intersection (NBI) method to determine the overall optimal solution. Results show that the optimized FGNPR crash box has better crashworthiness and vibration resistance over the other crash boxes and its performance is further verified based on the peak acceleration of B-pillar in full vehicle crash condition. This paper provides some theoretical reference support for the development and exploration of automobile crash box systems.

FEA and Quasi-static Test on Energy Absorption Characteristic of Space Orthogonal Concave Honeycomb Structure with Negative Poisson’s Ratio

As a representative of metamaterials, negative Poisson’s ratio (NPR) material possesses special mechanical properties such as expansion, negative compression ratio and so forth. As a result, it is widely used in the fields of vehicles, aerospace, et al. In this paper, a novel space orthogonal concave honeycomb structure (OC) is designed based on traditional concave honeycomb structure (CHS). In order to explore the influence rule of OC structure on the deformation and energy absorption capacity of crash box under low-speed collision, mechanical analysis and parameter research on OC structure are conducted through quasi-static compression test and numerical simulation. The results suggest that the finite element results of OC structure fit well with the experimental results, and the FEM is highly credible. In addition, the novel OC sandwich structure can effectively enhance the deformation capacity and improve the energy absorption performance of the crash box. When the wall thickness ? of OC structure is 1mm and angle ? is 50°, the deformation and energy absorption capacity of the crash box increased by 25.6% and 19.3% respectively.