Study of the impact behaviour of the vehicle.

1. General assessment of the calculation.

1.1 Overall energy balance
In order to validate the good behavior of the model, it is necessary to make an
overall energy balance of the vehicle’s energy. For this, we have plotted the
kinetic energy, the deformation energy and the total energy, in order to verify the
energy exchanges as a function of time during the different phases of the shock
(cf. figure 60).
According to the energy balance, the curve of the global kinetic energy decreases
in the first phase of the shock and then goes back to the return phase, whereas the
total internal energy is zero at the beginning of the shock with an increasing pace
in the first phase of the calculation and decreasing in the springback phase.
So the energy balance of our model is consistent with the behavior described in the
validity criteria section.
To validate the good energy behaviour of the model, it is necessary not only to
check the energy exchanges, but also to ensure that the fall of the total energy at
the end of the shock verifies the following condition
For our model we have
so our model checks the energy validity condition.

***Mass addition balance sheet.

According to the validity criteria recommended by the customer, the total mass
addition must not show an increase of more than 5% over the entire calculation. In
order to verify the correct numerical performance of the model, two mass checks
must be carried out at the initial stage of the cycle and during the calculation.
The evolution of the mass during the calculation of our model is illustrated in
figure 61
-Verification of the mass at the initial stage of the cycle (Cycle 0).
Because too much mass increase changes the initial energy of the shock (higher
kinetic energy) which could lead to a change in the shock scenario especially if
the increase was concentrated in a particular area of the vehicle. It is then
necessary to check the addition of mass at time t=0.
According to the calculation reports generated at the end of the simulation, we
have an overall mass added to cycle 0 less than 1%
At the moment t=0 we had an overall mass addition of 0%, so there was no
unacceptable mass increase.
-Evolution of the mass during the calculation.
During the calculation, it must be ensured that there was no unacceptable increase
in mass during the simulation. The total mass addition during the calculation (mass
addition to cycle 0 included) must not exceed a value of 5%.
According to Figure 61 we have an initial mass mi = 1.1625 t and a final mass of m
f = 1.16283 t so the overall mass addition in the model is 0.028% so the model has
a good behavior vis-à-vis the mass addition.
1.2 Assessment of the evolution of the time frame.
The elemental time step used in the calculation must not show extended drops
outside that allowed over a few cycles (<10) due to contact management in Radioss.
The evolution of the time step of our model is presented in figure 63:
The evolution of the time step for the simulation of our model is acceptable since
there was no fall in the time step, except for a few cycles. Then as shown in the
figure the time step is stable around the time step control value of 0.4𝜇s.
2.Study of the behaviour of vehicle parts at frontal impact. In the event of
impact, in particular frontal, the front part of the vehicle has the role of
absorbing and dissipating all or part of the energy generated by the impact, by
deforming, in order to cushion the impact and to avoid any deformation of the
passenger compartment. This role is essential to ensure passenger safety in the
passenger compartment. In this part we will study and check the correct behavior of
the structural parts of the front part of the vehicle.
2.1 Front bag behaviour:
The front bag consists of a transverse beam that connects the front ends of the two
front stretchers, equipped with a shock absorber (1) and (2) called the "Crash
Box",
this absorber comprising two longitudinal walls connected to each other by
deformable partitions in case of impact.
In the event of a frontal impact, the front bag is loaded in compression, which
generated the total crushing of the left crash box (2) and the buckling of the
right crash box (1) in addition to a fold at the front beam (Cf. capture 64 and
65).
2.2 Low track behaviour.
At the low end of the track, the impact caused the absorption element to crush
because of the high intensity of the impact. Given the constraints of architecture
and assembly, the low track has a small section and a large length (Cf. figure 66),
resulting in its unstable behaviour in the event of impact.
At first, the absorption element compressed, crashed and lodged, in compressed form
inside the platinum. In a second stage, due to the high intensity of the impact,
the transverse cross member in turn buckled strongly inward. Advantageously, the
bottom of the plate is flat and extends transversely in relation to a longitudinal
direction of the low track system, which ultimately constitutes a support and
crushing wall, against which the absorption element crashes.
The low track behaviour is shown in Figure 67:
2.3 Stretcher behaviour:
The structure of the front part of the vehicle body consists of two front rails,
each front rail having a front part (1) and a rear part (2), the front part being
deformable in case of frontal impact, and a rigid rear part with front support to
maintain the battery. Shock absorbers (3) “crash box” are inserted between the
front rails ends and the bumper beam to direct the impact forces towards the
vehicle structure (see Figure 68).
The deformation of the front rail during the impact is illustrated in figure 69:
During the frontal impact protocol, the left front rail, which has a longitudinal
elongated profile, deformed by successive bends under the effect of the compression
force generated by the impact, in a deformation mode called "bottling", and since
we have a high-speed shock, at the moment t = 1.5 10 5s the «Crash Box» can no
longer deform more, and therefore no longer absorbs the energy of the shock, then
the forces transmitted to the front part of the front rail increase until it causes
the deformation of the front part. In addition, efforts from the facade support
destabilized the front of the front rail and contributed to its collapse.
2.4 Nose Gear Behaviour:
At the end of compression of the absorbing member of the sub-frame and following
the force transmitted by the sub-frame towards the front axle, the left leaf spring
deforms longitudinally. Due to the fact that the leaf spring has a small
rectangular longitudinal section and a long length and due to its pre-deformed
shape of the middle, during the impact the left leaf spring did not crash but it
buckled around the pre-deformed zone while that of the right did not show any
significant deformation. This also results in a dislocation of the cradle-leaf
spring on both sides. The behaviour of the front axle is shown in Figure 70:
2.5 Structure behaviour.
At the front of the structure we do not notice a great deformation at the cabin.
The structure has a fold at the plate of the left front wing and an opening between
the right front wing and the right cabin side while the cabin side reinforcements
and the front pillar gusset on both sides intended to stiffen the structure remain
undeformable.
The deformation of the structure is illustrated in Figure 71:
in brief, the front part of the structure begins to endure deformations without
being saturated. Also, the force transmitted to the structure generated too much
deformation at the windscreen pillar (cf. figure 72).
2.6 Door behaviour.
The frontal impact did not generate any opening of the doors, nor did any of the
components of the doors dislodge during the impact, so the doors remained intact,
ensuring the safety of the passengers in the passenger compartment.
It also notes a good hold of the door pillar with a maximum normal force magnitude
of 4394.01 KN. Figure 73 shows the condition of the front left door (most stressed)
at the end of impact:
Conclusion:
In this chapter, we have explained the steps followed and the concepts adopted for
the construction of the frontal model by detailing the steps of modelling,
interfacing and setting
In model data, we also presented the study of the behaviour of the vehicle
structure vis-à-vis the frontal impact. In the next chapter we will deal with the
second part of the subject which consists in solving the problem of deformation of
the front impact bay.