Numerical Investigation of a Fiber Reinforced Composite (FRC) Crashbox under Axial Impact Loading

Nowadays, Fiber Reinforced Composites (FRC) have many applications in different kinds of industries such as automotive and aeronautic industries. This is due to their high strength-to-weight ratio. In recent years, FRC materials have been used to manufacture Crashboxes for modern vehicles to enhance their crashworthiness. The importance of FRC materials in field of Crashboxes is because of their great ability in energy absorption. Fiber reinforced composites can absorb considerable impact energy during their various fracture modes. Impact tests for such Crashboxes are destructive and expensive, so that simulation of this kind of tests is found very vital. These complicated fracture modes of FRC materials cause considerable difficulties in terms of validity between simulations and experimental results. In this study, a method of simulation with making use of finite element code Abaqus/Explicit has been presented to simulate composite Crashboxes. This method to simulate Crashbox impact test shows a good agreement between simulations and experimental results. This method could help others to conduct simulations and optimizations with ABAQUS software in this field of study.