 |
| Purchase Information |
| Use this form to request purchase information on AA online subscriptions. |
|
|
Document AA AT 5 is offered by IHS as part of an online subscription. This subscription contains many documents on the same topic.
You may also purchase this document alone from the IHS Standards Store.
AA AT 5 Document Information:
Title
Automotive Aluminum Crash Energy Management Manual
The Aluminum Association Inc.
Publication Date:
Dec 1, 1998
Scope:
This document has been developed to provide the major relevant
information about the behavior of
aluminum in vehicle crash situations and how this behavior, combined
with knowledge, experience and
appropriate design, can be used to develop crashworthy structures for
aluminum intensive vehicles.
The fact that this is indeed possible has been convincingly
demonstrated by the many crashworthy
aluminum structured vehicle designs that have been developed in recent
years, such as the aluminum
intensive version of the Ford Taurus which meets all the relevant
FMVSS crash safety requirements,
the GM EV1, which also has an aluminum structure, and the Audi A8
aluminum space frame vehicle
which meets all European and North American safety requirements for
crashworthiness (1,2,3).
Aluminum, just like steel, absorbs energy in a vehicle crash by
folding and bending deformation of
the metal structure. Both steel and aluminum, when used for vehicle
structures manage crash energy
absorption and, hence, provide crashworthy structures for the vehicle
occupants in exactly the same
way. Therefore, there should be no mystery or indeed any surprise that
aluminum can be used just as
effectively as steel to provide crashworthy vehicle structures.
There are however, important physical and metallurgical differences
between steel and aluminum; it
is, for instance, much less dense than steel but it is typically used
at about 1.5 times the steel
thickness in equivalent structural components, e.g. in front rails.
These provide the primary
energy absorption in a frontal collision and the increased thickness
for the aluminum results in
more deformation and, hence, enhancement of its energy absorption.
Conversely, automotive
structural steels will generally deform more before fracturing than
the corresponding aluminum
materials and therefore the design of components and whole structures
must take all such properties
and characteristics into account to ensure that the vehicle structures
have the requisite
crashworthiness.
Crashworthiness is one of the most important aspects in vehicle design
but there are many other
aspects to be considered such as weight for the projected size of
vehicle, structural stiffness
which is key for good road holding and handling, occupant space and
manufacturing cost and
compromises have to be made to evolve viable vehicle designs. However,
crashworthiness can not be
compromised but adding weight is not the answer; a well designed
military tank might be a safe
vehicle for its occupants but likely would result in fatalities in any
passenger vehicle in
collision with the tank. And the tank would not meet any of the
purchaser's expectation for speed,
comfort and road holding. Thus the challenge for the designer is to
develop vehicles which meet the
customer's expectations for performance, road holding and space while,
at the same time, having a
crashworthy structure and one that is viable to manufacture and sell.
The purpose of this document therefore is to bring together in one
place the relevant information
on the choice of materials and the design and manufacturing of
crashworthy aluminum vehicle
structures for automotive designers and engineers in the auto
companies and the parts and material
supplier industries. The document covers the relevant government
regulations, material properties,
overall design approaches including available modeling techniques,
design guidelines for individual
structural members, experimental results from component testing under
simulated crash conditions
and, finally, crash test results from actual aluminum structured
vehicles.
The data presented clearly demonstrates that appropriately designed
aluminum vehicle structures are
fully crashworthy, meeting or exceeding all the government safety
requirements as well as meeting
or exceeding the performance of equivalent steel structured vehicles.
About IHS
IHS (NYSE: IHS) is a leading global provider of critical technical information, decision-support tools and related services in a number of industries including aerospace and defense, automotive, construction, electronics, and energy. IHS serves customers ranging from large governments and multinational corporations to smaller companies and technical professionals in more than 100 countries. IHS been in business for more than 45 years and employ more than 2,300 people around the world.
