Frontal crashworthiness structure analysis and optimization of electric vehicle

GE Dong-dong1， WANG Qiu-cheng1， LIU Wei-guo2， ZHAO Fu-quan2
（1. Institute of Vehicle Engineering，Zhejiang University of Technology， Hangzhou 310014， China；
2. Geely Automobile Safety Technology Laboratory， Geely Automobile Research Institute， Hangzhou 311228， China）

Abstract： Aiming at the problem that the energy absorption of an electric vehicle's front cabin is insufficient and bending performance of the backend of front rails is not good，refers to the requirements of the regulations and the C-NCAP，the full-width frontal crash finite element model was built by Hypermesh and LS-DYNA software，the crashworthiness of front cabin was investigated. The location of the internal reinforcing plate of front rail and the welding spots were changed. The energy absorption of front cabin，the rigid wall impact force，the acceleration and the flexural capacity of the backend of front rail were compared before and after optimization. Simulation results indicate that，on the premise of almost no increase in the cost，the energy absorption of this structure increases by 3.5% after optimization，the rigid wall impact peak force decreases by 11.73%，the peak acceleration reduces by 3.8%，the flexural capacity of the backend of left front rail increases by 28.6%，and the flexural capacity of the backend of right front rail increases by 4.7%. The effect is good through optimization.
Key words： electric vehicle； crashworthiness； finite element； optimization design