Optimization of energy Absorber for a novel electric vehicle concept

In the research project Next Generation Car (NGC) at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), three different novel vehicle concepts are being developed: Urban Modular Vehicle (UMV), Safe Light Regional Vehicle (SLRV) and Interurban Vehicle (IUV). The NGC project is the consolidation of tools, methods and technologies for the different vehicle concepts investigated by DLR in the field of transport. The motivation for this work was to find an optimized side crash concept for the Urban Modular Vehicle concept consisting of a door sill and a sandwich element for crash. For the development of the body in white of the NGC Urban Modular Vehicle different structure optimization strategies were used. From the analyses of global load paths, to the size and shape optimization of the floor panels were applied to increase crash performance. The focus of the presentation is on a nonlinear door sill optimization and a parametric sandwich optimization resulting in innovative solutions for car design and the identification of energy absorber mechanisms. The main field of observation by using parametric sandwich elements is to detect thickness and angle of the sandwich core for the required crash performance. For the interpretation of the topology results which defines the location of the structures different optimization tasks were required. The concept for the side impact crash of the Urban Modular Vehicle includes an energy absorbent door sill consisting out of sandwich elements. In the first step, the optimization of the door sill cross-section was done with a nonlinear topology approach. In the second step, a size and shape optimization of the sandwich crash concept were performed to increase the internal energy and to reduce the intrusion of the pole. In the end a final concept was developed according to different optimization results.