Author : Hussain Pasha 1
Date of Publication :25th May 2018
Abstract: Safety of the driver and other occupants of the medium duty trucks during the event of the crash is a vital consideration for Cab body in white design. According to the data released by NHTSA, there were 37,461 people killed in crashes in 2016 which is a 5.6% Increase as compared to the previous year [6]. In the past, most of the dynamic analysis were done by testing or contracted out. Now with the use of Computer simulation the dynamic analysis can be simulated to reflect real world testing. Virtual simulation in the computer provides opportunities to reduce development time and also reduces number of physical prototypes consumed for verification of the design and its validation for safety regulations. Among rear, front impact and rollover accidents, rollover accidents results in severe casualty for occupants. As per Regulation ECE-R29.03, the cab body of the medium duty truck shall be so designed and attached to the vehicle in such a way that in the event of crash it exhibits a sufficient survival space and eliminate the risk of injury for the occupants to the greatest possible extent. In this project, simulations are performed to verify various safety aspects to ensure crash worthiness using the nonlinear explicit finite element program ANSA and LS-DYNA[11] to the baseline model of the truck for rollover 180 case (which constitutes both side impact and roof crush) as per ECE-R29.03 and the intrusions are recorded. It is found that the Baseline Cab is failed for crash and there is a need for strengthening the cab by adding few reinforcements at different locations [5]. Now various Reinforcement concepts are developed and added to the Cab at the rear wall and roof and simulations were performed in the form of iterations and the results are obtained. These results are correlated with the Baseline crash results. Finally, it is found that the crash results have improved.
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