The crushing of crash boxes is a complex phenomenon characterized by a strong interaction of structural and material properties. Many attempts to improve their energy absorption by adopting one aspect resulted in unacceptable unprogressive bucking. Thus, special considerations are required for crash box optimization including both material and structural effects. In this study, the structural behavior of the crash box is analyzed and a new design approach is introduced to fulfill these requirements. Currently, components, processes, and materials are mainly developed independently. However, to exploit the full potential of modern materials in component design, integrative development work is necessary. Component performance-based requirements and corresponding local material properties must be taken into account concurrently. In this work, a component-driven material design approach is presented, in which local-material-property requirements are derived from component simulations. This new approach is demonstrated by the use case of a quasistatically deformed crash box produced out of steel DP600 for the optimization target “energy absorption”. The finite element simulations were carried out on the crash box, and required material properties for improving the crash box performance were derived based on the simulations. Heat treatment strategies were developed afterwards and experimentally validated to fulfill these requirements. The finite element (FE) simulations based on the experimentally extracted material properties reveal the potential of the component-driven material design approach to improve the crash box performance. The introduced approach enables exploiting the full energy-absorption capacity of the material while ensuring the desired service behavior of the component.

The present research is focusing on the better understanding of the behaviour of the re‐entrant auxetic structures subjected to impact loads. Various results like the energy absorption capacity, impact force and force‐displacement curves are predicted by performing numerical simulations in ABAQUS. Furthermore, some comparative studies have been performed on different parameters associated with the geometry and the impactor mass to gain a better understanding of re‐entrant auxetic structures on its performance under the impact, mainly focusing on energy absorption characteristics.

Thin‐walled profiles are widely used as crash energy absorbers. In this paper thin‐walled square aluminum crash boxes under impact load are studied numerically. ABAQUS commercial software is used for simulating the CBes. The simulated model is validated experimentally using a drop tower test. Folding pattern of a CB has a significant effect on the energy absorption of it. In this study the effects of different parameters such as wall thickness and width on the dynamic behavior and folding pattern of the CB under impact load have been investigated.

Currently, components, processes and materials are mainly developed independently. However, to exploit the full potential of modern materials in component design, integrative development work is necessary. Component performance-based requirements and corresponding local material properties must be taken into account. In this work, a component-driven approach and therefore an inverted process chain is presented and demonstrated on the performance of a crash box, produced from DP600 steel. This is aimed to increase the energy absorption of the crash box without losing progressive buckling behavior. The finite element simulations were carried out on the crash box. It was shown that the crash box corners play an important role in the crash box performance, and required material properties for improving the crash box performance were derived based on the simulations. Heat treatment strategies were afterward developed and experimentally validated to fulfill these requirements. Then different local heat-treatment processes were applied to the corners of the crash boxes and tested experimentally. The experiments results validate the potential of the inverted process chain to improve the components performance. Furthermore, in this paper, optimal material properties were extracted for crash box strengthening, which lead to high energy absorption and a low peak force of it.