Crashworthiness design of vehicle side door beams under low-speed pole side impacts

In low speed collisions, insurance cost is a factor which is taken into account as a design criterion to reduce structure damage and fixing cost. In this study, it is focused on the applied permanent damages of vehicle frontal door caused by pole impacts. In the side impact, the side door beam is responsible to absorb the most possible kinetic energy. Two significant parameters including material and geometry of a side door beam are discussed here to reduce permanent damage of the door. To study the effect of material as the first phase, six different sheets of material have been concerned to investigate the rigidity of the structure. For the second phase, geometry modification of the side door beam has been performed via creating new CAD-reinforcing ribs. Consequently, the strength in elasto-plastic mode, maximum deflection and plastic strain of the equipped system representing the permanent damage is obtained in order to achieve lower losses.

► The effects of the side door beam materials on the door-permanent damage are investigated.
► The effects of increasing the beam thickness on the door deflections and forces are analyzed.
► Various rib arrangements are employed into the side door beams to examine the level of the damage.
► The primary system is compared to the altered one by plastic deformation and velocity variations.