Alternative lightweight materials and component manufacturing technologies for vehicle frontal bumper beam

Three materials have been characterized under quasi static and impact tests for this bumper beam application: GMT, GMTex, and GMT-UD. Major parameters, such as impact energy, peak load, crash resistance, energy absorption and stiffness have been taken as evaluation criteria to compare the proposed materials solutions with pultruded and steel solutions. Finally, the results predicted by the finite element analysis have been evaluated and interpreted in comparison with other existing solutions to put in evidence the effectiveness of the proposed innovative materials and design concept solutions.