Modeling and testing of energy absorbing lightweight materials and structures for automotive applications

As a consequence of the increasing demands in automotive industry concerning crashworthiness and passive safety, the concern for energy management and safety demands also increases. The goal of energy management is to reduce the forces and stresses on an occupant or a pedestrian during a crash event; in some cases it may be possible to reduce the forces by a factor of two. This requires usage of new advanced materials in automotive components. Energy absorbing foams and other lightweight materials like plastics and polymer composites are increasingly used in automotive industry. Hence, extensive study of energy absorbing behavior of these materials as well as the automotive components is needed for further improvements in numerical modeling and crash simulations. The paper enlightens recent advances in investigation of mechanical properties and energy absorption ability of the mentioned lightweight materials as well as modeling with finite element codes for crash simulations.