Downloaded from SAE International by Univ of California Berkeley, Monday, July 30, 2018

JSAE 20037050
SAE 2003-01-2776

The application of the damage & fracture material model

to crashworthiness evaluations for Aluminum cars.

Takuji Tsuchida
Toyota Motor Corporation

Yasushi Shibuya
Toyota Techno Service Corporation
Copyright © 2003 SAE International

ABSTRACT tuning. Fortunately, strain rate dependencies of

In an evaluation of crashworthiness for the cars
made of aluminum alloys, the evaluation considering
fracture phenomenon comes to be needed because
conventional aluminum alloys have low fracture strain
(10-20%). In case of the development of a B-Pillar
made by die cast, if crack occurrence, furthermore,
separation of a part can be estimated by using CAE
in crashworthiness evaluations, we can reduce the
number of prototype makings and the cost of devel
opment using expensive dies. Therefore, we per
formed crashworthiness evaluations by CAE using
some sort of a damage & fracture material model. It
is known as Orthotropic damage & fracture model".
stress-strain relationships of typical aluminum alloys
are negligible. Therefore, we chose orthotropic dam
age & fracture material model to examine crashwor
thiness of an aluminum car because material body
doesn't rupture in compressive strain state in case of
ductile failure, differently from brittle failure like a rock.
This material model has some advantages described
below.
1.Stress-strain data by the use of conventional
uni-axial tensile test is usable.
2.Material damage doesn't depend on strain rate.
3.Computational cost isn't so expensive.

4.Strength property (load-displacement curve) of

INTRODUCTION component is tunable in short period in the term of
car development.
We had never handled material fracture in crashwor
thiness simulations because steel panel has enough Fig.1 shows the damage characteristic and fracture
stretch limit (30-50%) and material fracture phe criterion of the material model.
nomenon had been outside of our consideration.
However, for the cars using aluminum alloys, we had
to consider fracture phenomenon because of its low
stretch limit.

Nowadays, several material models handling mate

rial damage & fracture are implemented in commer
cial FEM solvers. In case of full car FE-model in
CRASH-CAE using explicit solution procedure, the
FE-model is far from "consistent" because of a limita
tion of the number of elements from computational
cost and we can't get reliable strains at portions
where stresses are concentrated. Therefore, even if
exquisite material fracture models are employed,
their abilities are not fully utilized. In this situation,
results of CAE have to be correlated with actual test
results by FE-model tuning in consideration of frac
ture phenomenon in components level. In general,
strain rate (speed of deformation) in strength test of
component and one in actual collision test is not
equal. Then material models whose damage & frac
ture characteristics don't depend on strain rate are
suitable for the full car FE-model in view of model Fig.1 The material model

IBEC2003 (2003.10)
-175-
 Downloaded from SAE International by Univ of California Berkeley, Monday, July 30, 2018

COMPUTATIONL RESULTS USING

CONVENTIONAL CAE

Here, results of both 3 points bending tests and simu

lations are shown in Fig.2 to 9. Test pieces are made
by thin walled die cast process and the simulations
were done by conventional CAE considering no ma
terial damage & fracture phenomenon. CASE2 is up
side down loading case of CASE1. In case of CASE1
in which a crack occurred, a load-displacement curve
of the simulation didn't have good agreement with the
actual test result after when the crack occurred
(Fig. 5). In case of CASE2 in which no crack occurred,
the result by conventional CAE has good agreement Fig.5 The load-disp. comparison
with the test result (Fig. 9).

Fig.2 3 points bending test (CASE-1) Fig.6 3 points bending test (CASE-2)

Fig.3 The test result Fig.7 The test result

Fig.4 The result of conventional CAE Fig.8 The result of conventional CAE

-
176 -
 Downloaded from SAE International by Univ of California Berkeley, Monday, July 30, 2018

Fig.9 The load-disp. comparison

CONSIDERATION OF MATERIAL
DAMAGE & FRACTURE

Material property is measured by optical video re

corder for measuring elongation by the use of meas
urement interval initially equal to a FE-element edge
length and by load cell for measuring force through a
specimen so that a calculated load-displacement
curve of an element can correlate with an actual test
result (Fig. 10). In case of our CAE simulations, first
order shell element was used in view of computa
tional cost and stability. Therefore, displacement field
of material body is approximated by first order
straight lines and both stress and strain fields are
essentially approximated by constant values. Conse
quently, the material property obtained by this meas
urement method can't express sudden change of
elongation caused by necking because a FE-element
edge length is nearly equal or larger than the size of
the area in which necking occurs in a specimen. So
we had to recognize fracture phenomenon as macro
scopic one and then, we assumed that an FE
element is deleted when its elongation (principal
plastic strain) reaches at a stretch limit.
Fig. 11 A property of a typical Al alloy
By the way, "Orthotropic damage & fracture model"
used at here judges a fracture at an integration point
in an element by the use of principal plastic strain.
When fractures are identified at all integration points
in an element, the element is deleted from a FE
model as rupture. Incidentally, compressive plastic
strain makes no material damage (material softening)
and the judgment isn't done for it. It is identical to an
undamaged curve in Fig.11.
THE APPLICATION TO STRENGTH
EVALUATIONS
Using the material properties obtained by the manner,
the results of CAE in consideration of material frac
ture are shown in Fig. 12 to 19. Referring to stress
concentration factors obtained from original shape
(undeformed shape), a stretch limit was tuned at
every critical portion. Therefore, although the model
wasn't consistent, it managed to simulate the results
of the actual counterpart.

Fig.10 Material property measurement

In this paper, stress calculated by force divided by

the area after deformation is used as "true stress"
and strain calculated by elongation of measuring in
terval equal to an initial FE-element edge length is
used as "logarithmic strain". Fig. 11 shows a stress Fig.12 CASE-1 considering material
strain relationship of a typical aluminum alloy meas damage & fracture
ured by the method described in this section.

- 177-
 Downloaded from SAE International by Univ of California Berkeley, Monday, July 30, 2018

Fig.13 The test result (the same as Fig.3) Fig. 17 The test result (the same as Fig.7)

Fig. 14 The result of CAE Fig.18 The result of CAE

Fig.15 The load-disp. comparison Fig.19 The load-disp. comparison

A PERFORMANCE ESTIMATION
IN EURO SIDE IMPACT COLLISION

Next, a simulation of an evaluation test in Euro Side

Impact Collision was performed. A full car FE-model
was build up by the use of tuned component models
using the manner described in the preceding section.
The condition of the evaluation was based on the
Euro-NCAP. The deformation results are shown in
Fig.20 to 23. The results by CAE have good agree
Flg.16 CASE-2 considering material ment with the actual test results.
damage & fracture

-
178 -
 Downloaded from SAE International by Univ of California Berkeley, Monday, July 30, 2018

Fig.21 The deformation

at Belt line height

Fig.20 The deformation comparison

CONCLUSION

(1)Full car crash simulation in consideration of crack

becomes possible by the use of both the damage
& fracture material model and FE-model tuning in
components level.

(2)Even if crack occurs in key component, examina Fig.22 The deformation

tion of influence on passenger by collision be at Hip point height
comes possible.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank the members in CAE-groups

of our Div. for their effort to put forward with the pro
ject and thank both Mr.Yoshihiro Kobayashi and
Ms.Yachiyo Watanabe of TTS Corp. for strenuous
effort to accomplish the project.

Fig.23 The deformation comparison

(inside view)

- 179-