Chapter 32: Pick-up Truck Frontal Crash

32 Pick-up Truck Frontal Crash

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Summary 512
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Introduction 513
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Requested Solutions 513
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FEM Solution 513
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Results 515
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Input File(s) 515
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CHAPTER 32

Summary
Title Chapter 32: Pick-up Truck Frontal Crash
Geometry Width= 1,954 mm
Length= 5,454 mm
Height= 1,841 mm

Material properties Three different material types are used:

• Elastic material: MAT1
• Elasto-plastic material: MATD024
• Rigid material: MATD020
Almost all structures are made by elasto-plastic material
E (Young’s modulus) = 2.1e+5. N/mm2
 (Poisson’s ratio) = .3
 (density) = 7.89e-9 tonne/mm3
 pu (ultimate plastic strain) = .9

Analysis type Transient explicit dynamic analysis

Boundary conditions Fixed condition of the rigid wall
Applied loads Initial velocity of 5000 mm/sec. defined for the pick-up truck
Element type • 1-D beam element
• 2-D shell element
• 3-D solid element
FE results t = 90 ms
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Pick-up Truck Frontal Crash

Introduction
Auto companies perform crash tests simulation to increase safety of the vehicles and comply with government
regulations such as those of FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards). This is an example of a pick-up truck
frontal crash at 15 m/s (34 m.p.h.) against a rigid wall. To model the simulation, contact was defined between the truck
and the rigid wall to predict the stress and deformations of the structure.

Requested Solutions
A numerical analysis will be performed to find the behavior of a pick-up truck during crash simulation.

FEM Solution
Three contacts are defined in the simulation:
1. The truck and rigid wall surface
2. The truck tires and the ground surface
3. Self contact for the truck to avoid penetration among various components
SET is an executive control entry in SOL 700 that defines a set that contains some grid points. The set will later be
referred by the CSPOT entry in the bulk entry section.
SET 990009 = 105843 105655
..
TSTEPNL describes the number of Time Steps (10) and Time Increment (9.e-3 sec.) of the simulation. End time is the
product of the two entries. Notice here, the Time Increment is only for the first step. The actual number of Time
Increments and the exact value of the Time Steps are determined by SOL 700 during the analysis. The step size of the
output files is determined by the Time Increment as well.
TSTEPNL 20 10 9e-3 1 5
To define a 3-D contact region, BCPROP and PSURF are used. BCPROP and PSURF specify a contact body by
element properties and element IDs, respectively.
BCPROP 1 1 2 3 4 10 11 12
..
BSURF 5 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
..
Concentrated masses are defined by CONM2 entry.
CONM2 1990624 91344 1e-06
Rigid nodes which are attached to a reference node are defined by RBE2 entry.
RBE2 5 104247 123456 104272 104614 104615 105038 105039
..
Applied forces and motions in the model are gravitational force and the initial velocity on the truck.
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CHAPTER 32

GRAV defines acceleration vectors for gravity or other acceleration loading.

GRAV 3 0 9806. 0. 0. -1.

Initial velocity of the pick-up truck is given. All nodes of the truck have an initial velocity specified by the TIC entry.
TIC defines values for the initial conditions of variables used in structural transient analysis. Both displacement and
velocity values may be specified at independent degrees of freedom.
TIC 1 1 1 15000.
Boundary conditions are limited to the rigid wall and ground. All nodes of the rigid wall and the ground have been
constrained in all the degree of freedom.
SPC1 1 123456 990803 THRU 991384
Spot weld definition is used at several points. CSPOT is used to define spot-weld with several types of failure criteria.
Normal force criterion at failure (1.e+8 N) is applied to the spot weld entry. The number of a specific SET defined in
the executive control section is referred in the entry.
CSPOT 990009 990009
1e+08
..
MATD20M is used to merge MATD020 rigid bodies into one assembly for SOL 700 only.

MATD20M 181 180 221 182 183

..
RBJOINT defines a Joint between two rigid bodies. This entry supports 14 different types of rigid joint. This analysis
has two different types of rigid joint. REVOLUTE type describes the revolute joint type which allows only axial rotation
with other degrees of freedom fixed. UNIVERS type describes the universal joint type which allows all rotational
degrees of freedom with all translational degrees of freedom fixed.
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Pick-up Truck Frontal Crash

Results
t = 0 ms t = 25 ms

t = 50 ms t = 75 ms

t = 90 ms

Figure 32-1 Deformation History

Input File(s)
File Description
nug_32a.dat MD Nastran main analysis input file
nug_32b.dat Pick-up truck model file
nug_32c.dat Definition of rigid connection file