Optimisation of vehicle side interior panels for occupant safety in side impact

In a car side crash, the interior panels of the door and B-pillar could have a direct contact with the occupant of a struck car, which is a risk for occupant chest injuries. Therefore, the objective of the study is to enhance car safety performance for occupant chest protection by optimising the interior panel's properties and design parameters. A production passenger car finite-element model was developed and used to analyse the interior panels design for occupant protection. Prescribed structural motion technology was employed to reduce the computation time. The elastic modulus and thickness of the interior panels of the door and B-pillar are considered as design parameters. An optimisation of the interior panels was carried out by using the response surface methodology with quadratic functions. The efficiency of the optimisation was identified by reducing the risk of thorax injury by 25%.

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