AN INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECT ON THE ENERGY INTENSITY OF THE MAIN POWER ELEMENTS OF THE CAR BODY IN THE SIDE IMPACT ZONE
The urgent problem today is to ensure passive vehicle safety in a side impact. The paper presents the developed rational finite element models (FEM) of the body and pillar, on which the results are obtained with acceptable accuracy and minimum solving time when using the LS-DYNA solver. The behavior of the body and frame material is described using the Johnson-Cook model, which takes into account the nonlinearity of the material and the effect of the rate of loading. The behavior of foam aluminum is described using the Deshpend-Fleck model. The phases of deformation of the body and the nature of deformation of body elements were analyzed. Based on the results of the computations, it was found that the most dangerous loading mode in a side impact is the pole impact. Analysis of the picture of the deformed state during the pole impact showed that threshold, a door, a roof, floor and a frame are significantly deformed during and need additional research and reinforcement. Therefore, it was proposed to reinforce the body structure elements with foam aluminum in this paper. The analysis revealed, that complex reinforcement of body elements is necessary to meet the requirements of passive safety, but it entails a significant increase in body weight. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out with further topological and parametric optimization of the load-bearing elements of the body.