Evaluation of adaptive carbon fibre-reinforced door beams

An expandable, carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) door beam was designed, built and experimentally evaluated to improve side impact performance and reduce mass in passenger vehicles. Pressurisation and expansion of the beam was achieved using gas generator technology. The impact performance of the beam was evaluated by means of a sub system test method, mimicking vehicle-to-pole side impact. The sub system test method comprised a 3-point, bending load case, with a spring loaded sliding boundary condition at one end of the beam, while the other end was rigidly fixed. The beam was impacted by a 60 kg cylindrical impactor at 6 m/s. For the expanded and pressurised beam peak deflection was 193 mm. For the folded unpressurised beam peak deflection was 216 mm. To achieve the same impact performance with the expandable CFRP beam, as with a state of the art aluminium door beam, mass reductions seem plausible.